°If cbdakota were appointed the EPA Administrator, he might begin his work issuing this statement:
I thank President Trump for my nomination and the vote approving the nomination.
Our mission will be that the EPA continues to protect the environment and at the same time does not stifle our Nation’s productivity.
Our initial review of the EPA has found some activities, regulations and guidance documents that need to be critically assessed, cancelled or expanded. The following are several of the items that illustrate the issues we uncovered and our plan to deal with these issues:
Endangerment Finding:
The Endangerment Finding (EF) needs to be re-evaluated, revised and updated using current science. The EF is largely based upon the IPCC pre-2007 climate science, making it more than 10 years old. Furthermore, the projections of temperature, sea level and other variables do not match the actual measured temperature and sea level data. These EF projections greatly overstate the size of the changes thus putting into question the amount of endangerment.
The overstated predictions are made by the General Circulation Models which have not proven themselves to be able to predict the future. Making policy based on these models—as reflected in the EF is at best ill-advised and at worst, certain to cause profound suffering for the world’s poorest inhabitants.
Further, regional forecasts of temperature, sea level, hurricanes, snow, drought, etc. are portrayed in the EF. These regional computer predictions have been largely determined to be unskilled.
A very important issue is “Climate Sensitivity”. Climate Sensitivity is an estimate of global warming that would occur were the atmospheric CO2 to double. Laboratory work suggests that if CO2 were the sole forcing agent, a doubling would increase global temperatures by about 1°C. The presumed way it works is that the CO2 induced warming would result in an increase in water vapor in the atmosphere and the total effect would be an increase from 2°C to 4.5°C. The major greenhouse gas(GHG) is water vapor. Current research, by the IPCC as well as independent studies suggests that maybe 1.5°C is the real number. Others observing the recent 15 + years of the statistically insignificant global temperature rise, think the proper sensitivity number is more likely 1°C. It appears that the popular sensitivity number at the time of the development of the EF was 3°C per doubling. Until the sensitivity number is accurately determined and other re-evaluations, revisions and updating are completed, policy making should not be determined by use of the EF.
Social Cost of Carbon:
Social Cost of Carbon equation currently used to justify a program, is flawed. It will not be used until it can be revised to match the way evaluations are done across the globe in normal business. While there are several issues that make the equation flawed, the main one is that the EPA presently does not consider any benefits, only debits.
It will be necessary to re-assess the question of possible damage in light of those items mentioned in the discussion of EF as well as including the benefits that accrue from the observed increase in global food crops across the globe that results from the increase in atmospheric CO2. CO2 extracted from the atmosphere is the ”food” that all plants require for life and without which plants are not viable.
The discount rate used for any calculation of the social cost of carbon will not be less than 7% and possibly as high as 10% which would be more in step with standard in US business undertakings. The 2% used by the EPA is unjustified.
Secret Science:
Secret Science can be defined as a study where the data used to justify the study outcomes are not released to the public for their evaluation of the credibility of the conclusions. Secret Science is a way to push programs that are otherwise unjustified and unlikely to be in the public’s interest.
All regulations based wholly or in part on secret science are hereby rescinded. These regulations can be reactivated when the secret science is removed, assuming that new, credible science can be found that recommends reissue. Any such regulation, so revised, will be considered as new and go through the standard protocol from the beginning.
Sue and Settle:
The EPA will meet advocates with different viewpoints just as it has in the past. In the future, however, these meeting will be open and transparent. and no back channels will be allowed. A former Administrator and her staff used aliases to communicate on back channels to keep their activities secret. This will not be allowed while I am the Administrator.
The EPA will not encourage parties to sue. The EPA will defend their position. The EPA will not pay for the suing party’s cost.
This will ring in a change in the way the EPA has been operating. We will ask the Attorney General’s office to examine certain law suits where sue and settle is suspected. Sue and settle suits may have been used to skirt the laws passed by Congress by deceiving the Federal and/or State courts. Unauthorized deletions of records can be a felony.
Study Awards
The EPA is provided money for studies by the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). There are some thirteen organizations that are funded by USGCRP. USGCRP distributes about $3 billion annually among them for climate research. The EPA will continue to award monies for climate research; however, study of natural causes of global warming will not be locked out as it appears to have been in the past.
Other Issues:
There are indications that the regulations regarding the Clean Water Act have become overreaching. This situation will be reviewed.
If, for example, a release of toxic materials into a water stream occur because of EPA action, those responsible will be treated the same as if the release were the fault of some organization outside to the EPA.
Regulating sometimes provides little or no benefit to the environment while weighing down productivity of business and industry. We plan to review our work, past and present to eliminate this condition.
EPA ADMINISTRATOR cbdakota
What did I leave out that you think should be part of cbdakota’s mission statement? The Paris Accord? Who does that belong to?
Remember, windmills, solar cells, café standards, subsidies and the like are pretty much The Department of Energy’s things to manage. They need a mission statement too.
cbdakota
Climate Change Sanity 