Rise of the unelected

Rise of the unelected

America's future prosperity may hinge on who wins an internal fight within the Bush administration.

On the one side are the bureaucrats of the Environmental Protection Agency. In the name of combating global warming, they are gearing up to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. It's not just the carbon dioxide from auto tailpipes. It's emissions from all sources: factories, schools, restaurant kitchens, heating and cooling systems, power plants, farm equipment and businesses of all types. In a nutshell: everything. Because almost everything that uses energy produces CO2.

But media reports reveal EPA is in conflict with the White House Office of Management and Budget, which answers more directly to the president. Their job is to ride herd on other bureaucrats so our economy isn't stifled by excessive red tape.

The immediate fight is over an unreleased (but leaked to the press) 250-page proposal from the EPA, announcing its intent to adopt rules that expand the 1970 Clean Air Act by designating carbon dioxide as a pollutant that endangers us.
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The EPA suggests it would create a "cap-and-trade" rationing system to limit carbon dioxide emissions – the very proposal that sank in the U.S. Senate recently when it was exposed as a major new tax on energy. The Heritage Foundation projected such a Rube Goldberg approach would cost America almost a million jobs a year, raise average home utility costs by $50 to $100 per month and send gasoline prices soaring even higher. Furthermore, these extreme limits on energy use would cause a new job exodus from the U.S. to overseas.