EPA

On a Kansas City radio show, Sarah Steelman suggested that she would defund the Environmental Protection Agency, signed into law by that leftwing hippie Richard Nixon, if given the chance. 

Steelman told KCMO’s Greg Knapp that she would defund the EPA to avoid new regulations:

“I would defund EPA. I would cut those…I would cut their budget so they could no longer do those things.”

Maybe Steelman would like it more if the United States took a more laissez-faire approach to regulating pollution like China. Or we could just go back to the early years of the EPA before clean air and water laws had made a significant impact.

Roy Blunt, who declared during his U.S. Senate campaign that "there isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth,” has cosponsored legislation to completely eliminate the Environment Protection Agency.

In unrelated news, Roy Blunt does whatever polluting corporations ask him to do.

Last Thursday, the Senate voted 53 to 47 to defeat the Murkowski resolution that would have undermined the EPA's ability to reduce global warming pollution. The vote provides a useful guide to how senators might act on a climate vote.

Of course, it is not a clear-cut comparison because some people voted against the flawed resolution to make a point about process or simply to support the science. It is significant to note that we have 10 more votes in favor of reducing carbon emissions than we did the last time climate change was discussed on the Senate floor two years ago.

This is a pivotal week in the clean energy debate. The Senate will vote on Murkowski's short-sighted resolution to take away the EPA's authority to regulate pollution. As we head into this critical time, it's not the Inhofe-cloned climate deniers who trouble me - it's the knowing bystanders who are keeping me up at night.

Before I start this rant, let me just state for the record that I still think deniers are about as accurate as my three year old is when she is trying to describe quantum physics at her make-believe tea parties (although they are wholly less adorable). The vast majority of these deniers resist climate legislation because they really don't believe global warming is a problem - yes their heads are in the sand. But for the purposes of the Murkowski resolution, their vote is already lost.

Lt. Governor's Peter Kinder "calculated" strategy to be more effective and less ridiculous continues apace with this breathless tweet:

Kinder, as you might expect, is way off base. The EPA ruled today that greenhouse gases endanger public health – not exactly an extreme idea – which will allow the agency to regulate emissions IF the Senate fails to adopt clean energy legislation.  A 2007 Supreme Court ruling rebuked the Bush administration and required the EPA to determine under the Clean Air Act if carbon emissions had an impact on public health. 

The ruling does not require any immediate reaction, but does provide for new options if the Senate chooses not to reduce emissions legislatively.