Last Gasp?

(Cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published 6/3/14 in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.  Click on image to enlarge.)

The head of the EPA and President Obama have announced a new rule which is intended to cut CO2 pollution and to clean our air.  Like most of President Obama's "initiatives", the move is at best a modest one, a baby step, if you will.

But the critics aren't happy, especially those with a financial stake in coal and oil-burning power plants, in other words, our owners are not happy, even if we can't breathe.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy offered a blunt defense Monday of the Obama administration’s new rule to cut carbon dioxide pollution, touting its benefits against mounting criticism from the coal industry and some members of Congress.

“Given the astronomical price we pay for climate inaction, the most costly thing we can do is to do nothing,” McCarthy told a room full of staff members and environmental allies at the EPA headquarters in Washington.

 

She added: “There are still special interest skeptics who will cry the sky is falling. Who will deliberately ignore the risks, overestimate the costs, and undervalue the benefits. But the facts are clear. For over four decades, EPA has cut air pollution by 70% and the economy has more than tripled.”   [Emphasis added]

 

Much of the gain Ms. McCarthy is talking about are attributable to measures taken before President Obama took office, but at least he is making some kind of effort, for which I am grateful.  Perhaps Congress will now revisit the issue and move us even closer to some kind of sane energy policy.

Like I said yesterday ... an old lady can dream, eh?