The Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council Calls on President Trump and EPA to Reconsider and Vacate the Scientifically Invalid CO2 Endangerment Finding

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I have previously discussed how important it is for the US Environmental Protection Agency to revisit and revoke the EPA Endangerment Finding for Greenhouse Gases issued in 2009. To date the USEPA has not decided to do so. I have suggested how anyone who pays electric bills can petition the USEPA to do this. What follows is a press release by one group that did so primarily based on 2016 research which provides the necessary new research results that justify a revisit and revocation. I do not know for sure whether others have submitted such petitions other than one from the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Science and Environmental Policy Project on February 17 (as updated February 23), which was previously published by Inside EPA.

Key Points of Council Press Release:

1. If the Endangerment Finding is not vacated, whether the current Administration likes it or not, it is certain that electric utilities and many other industries will face ongoing EPA CO₂ regulation.

2. This regulation will raise energy prices thereby reducing economic growth and jobs.

3. New research findings make it all but certain that CO₂ is not a pollutant but rather a beneficial gas that should not be regulated.

Text of April 9, 2017 Council Press Release

The Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council today praised President Trump for his recent Executive Order on climate and energy policy. However, the Council further called on the President and EPA, as part of the process initiated by the Executive Order, to revisit and revoke the scientifically invalid Endangerment Finding on which Obama-era greenhouse gas regulations are based.

On Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017, the Council submitted a Petition to EPA, demanding that it revisit and revoke the Endangerment Finding because that Finding has been scientifically invalidated. The Petition demonstrates that the Endangerment Finding is nothing more than a scientific hypothesis that has been disproved by the best empirical evidence from the real world.

The Endangerment Finding is the fundamental foundation on which all greenhouse gas policy and regulation of the Obama era rest – including the Clean Power Plan and U.S. involvement in the Paris Climate Accord. The Endangerment Finding purported to “find” that human-generated greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, constitute a “danger” to human health and welfare because of their effect in warming the atmosphere. However, the Endangerment Finding has been invalidated, and with it the foundation for regulation. As a result, there exists no scientific basis for any of ex-President Obama’s greenhouse gas-restricting policies or regulations.

The Council Petition to EPA is based in part on the September 21, 2016 Research Report by James Wallace, John Christy and Joseph D’Aleo. That Report demonstrated by clear scientific proof the invalidation of each of the three lines of evidence on which EPA relied in the Endangerment Finding to attribute global warming to human emissions of greenhouse gases.

The Research Report was peer-reviewed by eleven eminent and highly qualified scientists, engineers and economists, all of whom agreed with its conclusions. Those conclusions are definitive and unequivocal. As stated in the Research Report itself, “[T]his analysis failed to find that the steadily rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations have had a statistically significant impact on any of the 13 critically important temperature time series data analyzed.”

In testimony before Congress on March 29, 2017, Dr. Christy reiterated the key findings of the Research Report. Dr. Christy stated:

“The IPCC climate models performed best versus observations when they did not include extra GHGs [anthropogenic greenhouse gases]…. The basic result of this report is that the temperature trend of several datasets since {1959/} 1979 can be explained by variations in the components that naturally affect the climate [that is, excluding anthropogenic greenhouse gases].”

The scientific invalidity of the Endangerment Finding is now obvious, undeniable and easily demonstrated. It is time for an honest and rigorous scientific re-evaluation of this Obama-era political document. We have been taken down a tragically foolish path of pointless regulations and wasteful mal-investments to “solve” a problem which does not actually exist. Our leaders must summon the courage to acknowledge the truth and act accordingly.

The Council brought its Petition because the Obama-era greenhouse gas regulations threaten, as President Obama himself conceded, to make the price of electricity “skyrocket.” All Americans will benefit from a new era of regulation where the cheapest sources of energy can also compete and prevail in the marketplace.

The Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council is a group of homeowners concerned about the dramatic increases in the costs of household electricity brought about by the government-mandated shift of electricity generation from inexpensive and reliable fossil fuels to expensive and unreliable “renewables” like wind and solar. The Council receives no funding from any industry source.

For more information, contact:
Francis Menton
Law Office of Francis Menton
85 Broad Street, 18th floor
New York, New York 10004
(212) 627-1796
fmenton@manhattancontrarian.com

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April 9, 2017 at 04:37PM