EPA Chief: “Train to a global clean energy future has already left the station”
Gina McCarthy also warns that there will be economic “paralysis” if her agency is targeted
It has been fascinating to watch the the elite media and Washington insiders reactions to the speed and efficiency of Trump’s transition team organization and appointee selection.
With so much happening so quickly, I wanted to keep an eye on one of the most troubling agencies under the Obama Administration: The Environmental Protection Agency. The response of the big government bureaucrats in the EPA is likely to offer a clue about how they are going to behave in other federal organizations.
Legal Insurrection readers may recall that 27% of federal employees claimed they would quit their jobs if Donald Trump was elected. However, instead of quitting, it’s more likely they’ll exit a little less gracefully.
In the case of the EPA, agency chief Gina McCarthy warned the incoming Trump administration’s failure to address climate change would leave the country in environmental and economic “paralysis.”
“If we place rancor over action, we will fall victim to our own paralysis,” McCarthy said.
“The train to a global clean energy future has already left the station,” she told a packed ballroom at the National Press Club in Washington. And the U.S. cannot choose to be left behind.
The Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of President Obama’s climate agenda, “marked a turning point” as a sign of U.S. commitment to combat global warming. But tackling climate change is bigger than any one regulation, she said.
Trump’s EPA transition team is being spear-headed by climate change skeptic Myron Ebell. The train may have left the station, but it is about to hit a yuge, T-shapped wall. Then, it will be replaced by the famous Trump Train!
In one of the most entertaining presentations ever offered by the EPA, McCarthy then continued and explained how all this regulation has been good for the country’s economy.
“Over the past eight years under President Obama’s leadership, we have taken tremendous strides forward in economic growth,” she said. “At the same time, we have made incredible progress in cutting pollution and protecting public health.”
I suspect the farmers and sportsmen along the Animas River, the residents of Flint, Michigan, and herdsmen in Wyoming would disagree with McCarthy about how awesome the EPA has been for either their health or the economy.
Additionally, the list of green energy company failures under Obama is staggering:
Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
Solyndra ($535 million)*
Beacon Power ($43 million)*
Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
SunPower ($1.2 billion)
First Solar ($1.46 billion)
Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
Amonix ($5.9 million)
Fisker Automotive ($529 million)
Abound Solar ($400 million)*
A123 Systems ($279 million)*
Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
Johnson Controls ($299 million)
Schneider Electric ($86 million)
Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
ECOtality ($126.2 million)
Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
Range Fuels ($80 million)*
Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
GreenVolts ($500,000)
Vestas ($50 million)
LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
Navistar ($39 million)
Satcon ($3 million)*
Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)
(*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.)
Trump’s EPA appointees will have their work cut out for them when their train finally reaches McCarthy’s office. In fact, they can anticipate such a chilly reception from the nation’s eco-activists that it may reduce the global temperature average.
Activists have started petitions and held a public protest against Ebell’s role, and on Monday afternoon, the Sierra Club and several other groups were planning to project giant messages across the front of EPA headquarters.
I suspect those messages will feature many safety pins, as the bureaucratic environment within the EPA is about the only thing that is going to undergo a dramatic, rapid, and real climate change.
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Comments
Like waving a red flag in front of a bull… just watch what Trump does to the arrogant a-holes at the EPA!
They won’t know what hit’em.
The EPA is the source of a great deal of economic paralysis. You target a problem to fix it, ergo if we want an economy that is not parapalegic, we need to do away with the problems arising from the EPA.
Although I’d be surprised if whe had a good understanding of economics.
*if she had
She doesn’t care about the economics. That is the great flaw of the “analysis” that all of the regulations are based upon:
The “if we do nothing, the damage will be infinite and impossible to undo, so we must do something, and by extension, any price we pay now will be less than the price of doing nothing.”
That is the Progressive argument regarding climate change. That if we don’t do EXACTLY what they demand RIGHT NOW, that we’ll lose our opportunity to stave off some threatened world-ending ecological disaster which is nebulously defined but will potentially be the very end of all life on this planet.
In the shortest possible phrasing: It’s “static analysis” vs. “dynamic analysis,” which is the Progressive’s failing in ALL of their analysis models.
My way of thinking too. Kill the snake now before it reproduces. Trump seriously needs the ability to neuter government workers unions. They are the slime that holds it all together. The office of EEOC needs a hit as well. God bless Reagan for what he did to PATCO.
“Legal Insurrection readers may recall that 27% of federal employees claimed they would quit their jobs if Donald Trump was elected.”
I’ve never seen a hog walk away from a trough.
I’d rather they quit than have to be fired.
If they quit, they might not be eligible for unemployment (depends on the exact structure of the program which they apply to).
I actually expect that many of them WILL quit. I expect that Trump, acting as a CEO will put people in place who will force efficiency down the throats of bureaucrats that have never had to deal with an efficient process in their entire lives.
I ~HOPE~ that Trump will authorize a refurbishment of the Government’s entire IT infrastructure. That ALONE would increase efficiency of the Federal Workforce by double AND would likely justify the building of new manufacturing plants and probably ten-thousand jobs just for the computer components ALONE between manufacturing and support.
“I ~HOPE~ that Trump will authorize a refurbishment of the Government’s entire IT infrastructure.”
Your faith in technology is touching. Wouldn’t it be nice if that were possible. As an IT professional, I am very sadly extremely skeptical. Trump is a businessman, not a miracle worker.
By golly, that’s a quote worthy of a tattoo.
The USA is the ONLY industrialized power with a chance of meeting the Kyoto protocols for air pollution. And, there is one reason – Fracking.
Fracked natural gas has replaced coal in power plants and in boilers that used to use #2 fuel oil.
In 3 years NYC has gone from #2 fuel oil to NG. The city now burns more NG than Belgium. And, the air is noticeably cleaner.
Meanwhile – Germany spent 1/2 trillion Euro on solar energy which should produce 50% of their power. But the sun does not shine in Germany. It produces 6%. And to make of the difference they are burning MORE coal. And, shutting down their nuclear power stations is making this worse!
Yes. And the only way for the US to significantly improve on that is for micro-nuclear power plants to be appropriately developed, which can be placed close to residential neighborhoods.
Those micro-nuclear plants, along with a few leaps in battery efficiency, are really the only thing which will make long-term electric cars a viable reality in the North-East of the United States.
That’s over $7.5 billion. $22.73 per person. My family could have put that $90.92 to much better use and stimulated the local economy.
Meanwhile, Trump stands nearby holding a sledgehammer and looking at his watch.
I hope so.
The EPA’s global energy of the future train has left the station filled with robber barons and bureaucrats. The reality is populations can not be sustained as a consequence of energy reduction…. where will the lines start and who will get the bureaucratic “X” to be winnowed out of the brave new future. We all know where the road of good intention leads.
“You’re fired!”. Simples.
All the way down the management hierarchy until he meets someone willing to do the job he wants done.
“Legal Insurrection readers may recall that 27% of federal employees claimed they would quit their jobs if Donald Trump was elected.”
Maybe the unemployed federal workers that resign due to Trump’s election can find jobs carrying the baggage of those Hollywood actors and news people that threatened to leave the country if he was elected! Not! There will be no exodus of the mentally handicapped Demorats.
Even if we don’t burn the oil, we will make efforts to obtain it.
Henry Ford chose gasoline for his automobile because gasoline was a cheap plentiful byproduct of oil processing, which was used for all sorts of wonderous materials produced by biochemists.
Don’t tell anybody but gasoline was originally dumped (in the rivers) as a unneeded by-product. Ford “saved” the environment!!
Economic paralysis. Uh-huh.
Nothing like an election to morph grand delusions into comedy gold.
I can’t wait for Jan 20.
“Mr President, your phone and pen await …”
i’d like to remind that silly bint that the EPA was created by an EO, and it can be eliminated or modified the same way.
BTW: just eliminating all federal subsidies for the “clean energy train” would stop it in its tracks.
All Aboard!
That would be a great move. But it would only slow the train a notch.
And, remember, T-rump wants to EXTEND and EXPAND the anti-market, anti-science ethanol mandates.
There should not be enough alcohol left for cars when the libs realize how badly they have screwed the pooch. Betty Ford will have to put on a new wing.
There is a cartoon… maybe Ramirez of Obama shoveling dollars into the boiler of a locomotive since it was “cleaner” than coal.
Economic paralysis? So that’s how you justify the weaponization of the EPA? Preventing economic paralysis, are we? Were it 1880, you’d be tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail, you political hack harpy.
I’m afraid that’s where this is all headed. The progs will either STFU or they will learn the hard way.
Oh, I don’t think you’re afraid at all (j/k,lol).
The very existence of the ERA has created economic paralysis. It is an agency that has long since become a detriment to American business.
BTW, Ms. Leslie, this line is classic:
“In fact, they can anticipate such a chilly reception from the nation’s eco-activists that it may reduce the global temperature average.”
You’ve got a genuine Hall of Fame level skill for one-liners, lol.
I recall striking Air Traffic Controllers gave the same power point presentation to Reagan.
So yeah…bring it.
Shut up Gina, We President Now.
Hey gina, go stand in front of the train !
My concern is that as America pulls away from the catastrophilia that is Mann Made Global Warming ™ those of us here in Europe will end up paying the cost of that disengagement. all that will happen is Europe will lurch even harder to the left, heaping expense and cost on us poor suffering fools (because we allow this to happen) to cover for the lost money Trump will pull out of the bloated coffers of Mann Made Global Warming ™!!!
Europeans need to resist so many things going on there, but are just sitting on their hands. I’m afraid it’s time for Europe to grow up and solve their own problems. Self protection being one. In the twentieth century there was enough American blood shed in Europe.
Very excellent and timely piece, Leslie. Thank goodness the Trump Train has not or will not be derailed by people like McCarthy, who obviously knows -infinity (not just nothing but boundlessly and harmfully wrong) about either global warming (aka climate change)or economics. At last there will be the fresh air of truth allowed under the Trump administration.
Martin Fricke, Ph.D. (physics)
The EPA looks like it is going to be on the right track. It is still early days but I am keeping an ear for word on NSF, NASA & NOAA.
Yes, there are plenty of believers in those agencies, but when Reagan fired the members of PATCO it sent a message to other unions to not ask stupidly. Not only did he fire them, but also denied their hiring by any other federal agencies.
act stupidly….
PATCO & TSA would be 1st 100 day jobs that would produce almost immediate results.