EPA Climate Regs - All Pain, No Gain

Via Pirates Cove, this lovely video of EPA head honcho Gina McCarthy being grilled as Rep. Lamar Smith at the July 9th U.S House Science Committee meeting challenges her to defend regulations that will harm the economy, and yet have essentially zero impact on climate (0.01 C).



So, the purpose of the regulations is not to "fix", or even substantially ameliorate the "problem of global warming" (which, according to satellite data has not occurred in the last 18+ years). The real purpose of the regulations is to justify imposing similar regulations world wide.

ADMINISTRATOR MCCARTHY: “The value of this rule is not measured in that way. It is measured in showing strong domestic action which can actually trigger global action to address what’s a necessary action to protect…”

In an ideal world, an environmental regulation would be designed to have the maximum effect on the environmental problem in question, and minimal impact on people's lives (the economy). I realize that we do not live in an ideal world, but presumably regulations should focus on areas where they can do some good, and not on areas they cannot.

Either the EPA has run out of more effective ways of ameliorating climate change (which may well be the case, in which case they should stop advancing), or the goal of the regulations is not really to alter climate change at all, but to justify more regulations that put power generation and other industries further under the thumb of activists regulators with an unstated agenda. As is often the case, both can be true.