Thursday, January 10, 2013

Goodbye, Lisa Jackson !


Sometimes ''good riddance'' just doesn't suffice. It is hard to imagine a bureaucrat who has done more comprehensive damage to American interests than Lisa Jackson, the departing head of the Environmental Protection Agency. This person, is a cross between the stupidity and arrogance of Roseanne Barr and the evil-intent of the wicked queen in Snow White. In four years as administrator, she has put her radical environmental agenda before the wellbeing of the U.S. economy, the integrity of science and even the structure of the American political system itself.

Starting with her regulatory record. Since January, 2009, Jackson's EPA has issued 20 ''major'' regulations -- defined as rules with an economic cost of $100 million or more each year. These 20 rules carried a total initial cost of $7 billion....a painful capital expenditure demanded of businesses that were swinging-in-the-breeze trying to meet compliance standards.  That's was just for starters. These 20 major regulations carry an annual cost of 44.8 billion -- that's right, each and every year! It would be one thing if businesses and consumers paid that amount each year as taxes, which would still hurt but it would at least make a dent in the deficit, but these cost aren't even taxes. They're 44.8 billion in sheer waste; money that would otherwise be used productively in the U.S. economy.

Under this bitch's leadership, the EPA has issued a whooping 1,824 regulations. In comparison, the Department of Energy issued 83; the Department of Labor, 76; and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 51. Furthermore, more than 2 dozen additional rules are pending review and are already designated as major. Jackson's legacy is much like the regulatory legacy of the Obama's Marxist administration in general, which is hyper-regulatory. Remember my previous posting exposing Obama's over 1000  Executive Orders that intentionally bypassed the Congress?

Jackson's prolific rule making has taken a toll on employment. Seven EPA rules targeted at electricity producers will cost 1.5 million jobs in the next four years alone, according to a report published last October by the National Economic Research Centre. And stupidly seeking to limit greenhouse-gas emissions from vehicles, Jackson's 2010 ruling carries an annual 10.4 billion cost and destroyed around 50,000 auto-industry jobs. These are just two examples of many and yet the ignorant American public voted these incompetent deadshits back in. These rules drive up costs on everything from cars to power to consumer goods and at a time when Americans are cash-starved; as of December, 7.8% were unemployed and an additional 17.1% were underemployed.

Given Jackson's assault across the productive elements of the economy, it's a wonder things aren't worse. They could quite easily have been. A year ago she tried to regulate (read Stop) fracking. In fact it provided a classic example of how the EPA, under her leadership, misused, manipulated and outrightly ignored science. She claimed that fracking was contaminating ground water and a violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. The EPA based its entire conclusion on a mere four samples, too few to effectively test its hypothesis besides the EPA's report was at best sloppy and at worst willfully deceptive.

That's not the only time the EPA has come under fire for shoddy scientific methods. Jackson has a long history of putting politics before science. Jackson has a consistent record of pursuing her extremist environment agenda without much consideration for the U.S. political system just like her devious boss...B.H.O. Like in 2009, she classified carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant...tell that to the plants! Cato's Michaels did a comprehensive fact check of the EPA study underpinning the CO2 decision and found numerous flaws. Michaels, as chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology stated, " the Endangerment Finding from carbon dioxide is based upon a terribly flawed document on climate change in the United States. In my opinion, it is based upon the worst summary of climate research ever produced by federal researchers.''  Unfortunately, Jackson was still able to regulate CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act, cutting Congress out of the regulatory process.

The Way I See It....Jackson's willful disregard for American democracy is reflected in the type of President and the leftist cronies populating his administration. If she's willing to ignore the legislative branch, why not the judicial one, too? Her fuel-economy standards were drafted in the language of the ancient Persians, that will endure long after not only her tenure but also the President's. More people will die in car accidents as car's structure and sheet metal gets thinner in the industry's effort to squeeze out more miles-per-gallon.

The real problem lies in Jackson's misguided environment goals, which have been radical from the start. She has believed Al Gore's bullshit on climate change...hook-line-and-sinker. I must say she isn't quite unprincipled -- on the contrary, her commitment to greenness at all costs seems fervently devout. But her pursuit of these ideals ignores all other considerations -- economic, scientific and political.  The policies she sought simply harm too many people and yield too few benefits. Unfortunately for the U.S. economy, she is an unelected bureaucrat, and a tremendously dictatorial one at that. Her record speaks for itself -- since the American people weren't given much of a chance to. If they did, they would say, ''Goodbye, Lisa Jackson.....good riddance to bad rubbish!''

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