David W. Schnare, General Counsel, E&E Legal
Karen Lugo, Director, Center for 10th Amendment Action, TPPF
States that cooperate with the EPA’s new Clean Power rule will replace shared clean air regulatory authority with capricious federal standards. They will cede not only responsibility for standard setting but decisions on what kind and price of electricity their citizens will use, when citizens and businesses can use energy, and control over enforcement of state regulations.
The federal government has decided that carbon dioxide is responsible for rising seas, myriad illnesses, wildfires and failing crops. Since there is no consensus on the reports that link these disorders to levels of carbon emissions, the feds came up with a damage measurement and called it the “Social Cost of Carbon” (SCC). The feds then said that each ton of carbon emitted into the atmosphere creates about $40 worth of injury. Tellingly, they did not include the positive effects of carbon dioxide on crops in their calculus—a benefit that actually outweighs most costs.
