Will the Republican Congress Succeed in Reversing EPA Authority over CO2?

Spoiler alert: NO.

That was easy, huh? OK, blog post over. You can go back to watching online pet videos now. :)

But, seriously, Republicans will certainly rattle some sabres in the halls of Congress in the coming months/years, strut about, showing off their new Senate majority, and howl at glass-shattering decibel levels about reversing each and every last one of Obama's accomplishments while in office (and maybe some he had out of office...they'll probably get so animated they'll set up committees to investigate the validity of a few of his bowling trophies, or something). All of this pointless bluster will merely meet with the veto smackdown each time, so the legislative drama will be a tremendous waste of America's time. As I mentioned yesterday, however, do not fool yourself that this blowhard boondoggle-athon will serve no point at all. It will in fact do the GOP's major sponsors the favor of preventing further emissions controls and buying them more polluting time.

No, the specific showdown over CO2 authority will happen for real in the courts. If conservatives have any hope of gutting EPA regulation, it won't be through enactment of new laws in Washington. It will be by waving legal challenges to what Obama has already drafted under the noses of federal judges. Certainly, Republicans in Congress will play a part in these proceedings, if by doing nothing more than shaking their pom-poms vigorously for the EPA's opponents in these cases, but the actual petitioners will come in all shapes and sizes. I've blogged about them before, and perhaps it goes without saying that they are a bunch of self-contradicting, science-denying clowns.

Here's a great breakdown in video form of how EPA regulatory powers may fare in federal court by professors Jody Freeman and Richard Lazarus of the Harvard Law School. Despite previous victories, the EPA may be in for quite a struggle. Freeman puts it this way at one point in the video.

"Based on the UARG case [the case I mentioned in the previous blog post linked to above]...it wasn't all bright spots. There were a few dark moments, and in the opinion there are warning shots. It's hard not to view them as that; that look like they are designed to make EPA sit up and take notice."

Have a watch.

The Economy Vs. the Climate (Spoiler Alert: NOT Mortal Enemies)

Whatever form you believe climate change policies/solutions should take — technical, economic/regulatory, a mixture, or something else altogether — it's time to drop the prehistoric notion that we can either have a thriving economy OR a healthy environment. The two are not antithetical, incompatible, mutually exclusive, diametrically opposed, etc. Whatever superlative you prefer, the truth is we can have our cake and eat it, too. Here are some very smart people from the Harvard Kennedy School explaining why they've staked their careers on it. I found the discussion about successful cap-and-trade programs, starting at about 28:50 in the video, such as the Reagan administration policy to phase leaded gasoline out of the marketplace, particularly interesting.