Whether man’s use of energy sources such as coal and oil is creating catastrophic “global warming” is a matter of great debate. It became even more controversial after anti-global-warming activists were recently found to have manipulated or suppressed climate data and after grossly skewed claims were discovered in a major U.N. climate report.
But alarmingly, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has served notice that it will take it upon itself to impose regulation of so-called “greenhouse gases” if Congress does not do so quickly. That would allow the EPA to clamp down on industries that emit what it considers too much carbon dioxide, which environmentalists blame for slight temperature increases.
Unfortunately, that would also clamp down on our nation’s economy and destroy jobs — with no guarantee that it would significantly alter future worldwide temperatures.
That is a major power grab by a federal regulatory agency, and both Democrats and Republicans are sensibly recognizing that fact. Democrats, even though they often favor anti-global-warming legislation, have nevertheless introduced or co-sponsored legislation in both the House and the Senate to forbid the EPA to seize the authority to regulate greenhouse gases.
Democrat senators from West Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana and Nebraska have joined Republicans to fight the EPA move, as have Democrat representatives from Minnesota, Missouri, West Virginia, Virginia and North Dakota, The Washington Post reported.
That is encouraging. On a subject as controversial as global warming — and with proposed “solutions” being economically crippling — any major action on greenhouse gas emissions ought to come from Congress, after full public debate, rather than from EPA bureaucrats.