McConnell Inhofe failed . . . this time.

Had the amendment gotten just ten more votes, it would have passed.

If you don't know about the McConnell Amendment, let me tell you.  McConnell seeks to eliminate the Clean Air Act's tighter restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions by taking away the EPA's authority to act altogether. 

How does it do that, you may ask?  Well . . . it just says that the EPA can't do it.  But there's more.  If you read the Definitions section carefully, you'll see that "greenhouse gases" (GHGs) includes more than the standard six known GHGs, such as methane and carbon dioxide.  Under the McConnell Amendment, it - the term "greenhouse gases" - includes any substance covered by the Clean Air Act.  This, my friends, includes a number of things, obviously, but most disturbing is that somehow under the McConnell definition GHG also includes . . . mercury.

There's not a climate scientist on Earth that considers mercury a GHG.


 
I did a little digging.  The amendment is actually identified by its two authors, Senators McConnell and Inhofe.  I've always been a "follow the money" kind of gal, so I visited a website that watchdogs political contributions.  The top five contributors to Senator McConnell include, in order, Kindred Healthcare, UBS AG, Elliott Management, Citigroup, and Peabody Energy.  To Senator Inhofe, the top five contributors are the Koch Brothers, Murray Energy, Reed Elsevier, OGE Energy, and Contran.  So who are these contributors, and why should we care?  One by one:  Kindred Healthcare should be obvious:  it's a healthcare system of hospitals.  McConnell also has a couple of healthcare insurers on his top 10, by the way.  (He's opposed to Obamacare; more on that one later.) UBS AG is an international banking firm.  They do those quintessential "Swiss bank accounts"  (no, really.)  Elliott does the hedge-fund thing.  Citigroup . . . everyone knows what Citigroup is.  (Financial services, banking and insurance.)  Peabody is the largest private-sector coal company in the world.  So for McConnell, we have banking, mostly banking for the wealthy; healthcare, especially from the insurance side; and big coal.  Inhofe's contributors are even more telling.  The Koch Brothers, whose combined wealth is topped only by that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet's, is the top spender on campaigning against climate change science.  Koch owns oil refineries and pipelines in several states.  It owns Georgia pacific paper (Brawny, Quilted Northern, etc.) (dioxin, chlorine) and makes Lycra and Stainmaster (volatile organic compounds.)  It also makes nitrogen fertilizers.  Murray Energy -  another big coal company.  Reed Elsevier is in publishing and in finance.  OGE Energy is the parent company of Oklahoma Gas and Electic, a regulated electric utility, and Enogex, a midstream natural gas pipeline.  And finally, Contran Corporation dabbles in industrial chemicals of many kinds; it runs a disposal facility in Texas.

In case you are not aware, the coal industry is responsible for most of our mercury emissions.  Mercury is found in many rocks including coal. When coal is burned, mercury is released into the environment. Coal-burning power plants are the largest human-caused source of mercury emissions to the air in the United States, accounting for over 50 percent of all domestic human-caused mercury emissions.

Mercury is very toxic to humans, especially young ones.

While it is true that mercury is a naturally-occurring element, its toxicity is established at very low doses.  We don't want it in our air.  Sealed up in rocks, it doesn't harm us very easily.
(I find it interesting that these two guys - McConnell and Inhofe - are supported by banking and insurance and the fossil fuels industries.  Including coal.)

So now that we know what the amendment says, at least in a nutshell; now that we know who's written it;  and now that we know who's contributing to their re-election, let's look at the amendment on a broader scale, on a constitutional scale, juxtaposed against the concept of the independent executive agency.

Independent executive agencies (IEAs) are those created by statute and not part of one of the cabinet agencies.  Let me list a few of these IEAs for you.  The big one - the most obvious one for this discussion - is the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency.  The EPA was created with the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970.    Some have questioned whether the EPA should have any authority, given that legislative authority derives from the constitution and cannot be delegated.  But the power to execute laws lies within the executive branch, which includes not just the president but also a whole bunch of cabinet members and agencies.  So it's not as simple as that.  The executive agency promulgates regulations and follows through with compliance monitoring.  Delegated powers are commonplace in our government.  (Private contractors, anyone?)

Let's digress for a moment and discuss some other IEAs.  The big one is the Federal Reserve. Yep, it's an independent executive agency.  Formed with the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, The Fed created a central banking system.  A later amendment to the Federal Reserve Act was the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Acto of 2010, which made broad changes to existing financial regulations that would "improv[e] accountability and transparency in the financial system, to end 'too big to fail,' to protect the American taxpayer by ending bailouts, [and] to protect consumers from abusive financial services practices."  (That's from its preamble.) 

How about the Consumer Products Safety Commission?  Want to do away with that one?  A few years back when Mattel had all of those lead-laden toys lining our shelves, we were pretty upset that the feds weren't protecting us.  In 2008 the 1972 Consumer Product Safety Act, which created the CPSC, was amended to restrict certain phthalates (endocrine disruptor) in kids' toys and products and imposed new lead restrictions, including testing of products before they could be placed into the stream of commerce.  There was some oppositon from small business owners, as you would expect, since the testing is expensive. 

Did you know that NASA is an independent executive agency?  Yep. It is.

OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, came to be with the 1970 Occupational Safety and Health act.  Expect to see huge budget cuts affecting OSHA.  OSHA monitors workplace safety and adjudicates individual claims.  Why wasn't this placed within an obviously appropriate cabinet?  (Labor, maybe?) Because impartiality was desired.  Sounds like a good reason to me.

The 1934 Securities and Exchange Act created the Securities and exchange Commission, which governs fraud and insider trading allegations.  The Blue Sky laws that preceded the SEC were deemed ineffective and weak at curbing these frauds.  It's partly because of the impotency of the Blue Sky laws that the stock market crashed in 1929.  The SEC was an effort to shore up the weaknesses.

The Social Security Administration came about with the passage of the Social Security Act in 1935.  There has been a consistent and strong push to privatize social security, but for now it functions as . . . you guessed it . . . an independent executive agency.

I was asked my opinion on an article favoring passage of the McConnell amendment.  It seemed to me that the author based his reasoning on two arguments:  First, that the EPA is trying to regulate everything, and second, that the EPA lacks authority under the constitution to regulate anything.

Regarding the first, the Supreme Court has determined that the EPA is not only allowed to regulate but is furthermore obligated to regulate concerning any substance that affects air quality.  So it is not up to the EPA whether it should regulate "everything under the sun," it is up to the legislature to amend the Clean Air Act if it wants to limit its reach.  (It would be really nice, however, if the legislators wouldn't make up bogus definitions to sneak their buddies in through the back door.)

Second, as the final arbiter on constitutionality, it seems that if the Supremes are calling for further regulation, then the scheme must have passed constitutional muster.  There is a whole series of cases regarding the delegation of authority and administrative law.  The practice has withstood constitutional challenges throughout its history. 

Historically the bureaucracy has been criticized as being "too close" to the entities they're charged with regulating - take, for example, the Fed. Or the EPA.  The bureaucrats are sympathetic to the regulated industries, not least of all because the bureaucrats gained their experience in the industry they're now regulating.  But we're not hearing that complaint so much anymore. 

Curiouser and curiouser. 

Could it be because the privatization flag is unfurled and waving?

Think about it.  Crash the whole concept of an enabling legislation-established agency, and what falls?  Not just the EPA.  All of the ones I've already named.  And many others. 
Let's not forget the eras that these agencies grew out of - a lot of them were post-depression New Deal creations.  Many were Johnson's Great Society creations.  Some were Nixon's.  All were created to address years of abuse and met a deep-seated need for reform.  Why are we gong to dismantle all of that?  Do we really understand the consequences of our actions?

Robber barons.  Remember that period in history, circa the Titanic?  When the fabulously wealthy owned the railroads, the steel, the oil?  Are we not there again?

So, back to McConnell, with a brief complaint about the polar-opposite view. 

Actually, let's just go to that "polar-opposite view."  My inbox was flooded over the last couple of days with messages from my associates regarding the fact that both of my senators, Levin and Stabenow, "voted against clean air."  This offended me damn near as much as the McConnell overreach.  Why?  Why did it offend me?  Well . . . because in the face of a budget crisis, when the majority of working America is stressed out about job prospects, I think it's unrealistic to take the "all-or-nothing" approach.  Along with the McConnell amendment, three other proposals were presented.  All four failed; McConnell's received the most votes.  Among those that failed included moderate approaches, such as - rather than ignoring the fact that some companies are going to proceed with lay-offs if they have to invest capital in retrofitting - let's just delay the restrictions for two more years, giving the companies that forge ahead with meeting the new requirements a nifty tax break, and let's exempt agriculture.  That was Stabenow's proposal.  Do I want those big industrial cattle operations dumping crap in my rivers?  No.  Of course not.  But is it better than removing all of the restrictions on any air pollutant whatsoever AND letting them dump the crap?  Of course it is!  This is the proposal that garnered so much criticism for my senators, who are in one of the most economically depressed states in the union.  Voting "against jobs" is political suicide here.  We have to be real.

We have to think critically, folks.  The idea that clean air equals job loss only persists because the industries are allowed to take money from the government without propagating the benefits that are supposed to accrue to the public in return.  We've forgotten all about the proverbial carrot and stick; we've tossed the stick and given business and industry free run of the trough.  In fact, we're so beaten down we're offering them our plates, as well.  And now we're going to start privatizing???  When we already know that the flow of money leads away from the average American?  Sorry, but I'll take my chances with the tried-and-true regulatory scheme that we have.  I don't trust industry to look out for the public welfare.  Or the air that I breathe.  Or the air that our children breathe.

One of the sticking points in all of this is the scientific lingo.  Is "climate change" just junk science?  Well, there's really only one way to know for sure, and I don't plan to find out.  Sounds kinda scary.  But more importantly, I don't need to decide on the science to recognize the dire consequences for our health if we don't get with the program.  Childhood cancer is clearly linked to pesticides, smog, and carcinogenic substances in our homes.  Asthma and smog?  Yep.  Linked.  Autism?  As is the case with cancer, they're still debating, but an enormous amount of evidence demonstrates that toxins play a role in its incidence.  And I'll stop with those three.  Because you get the point.  I don't need to know where I stand on "climate change" to know that clean air is good for us, and that dirty air makes us unhealthy. 

An aside:  speaking of junk science, there's a guy who runs a website to debunk so-called junk science, such as "climate change" science.  I have a hard time taking him seriously, since his argument concerning mercury is that as a naturally occurring element, it can hardly be considered a toxin; after all, water itself has a toxic dose.  What a funny guy.  He makes it sound so logical, but what's bothering you about that comparison?  After all, it's a well-know maxim that "the dose makes the poison," no matter the substance.  The failure lies in the fact that water is essential to human survival; our bodies are mostly water and we can't survive without replenishing it.  In order for a human to ingest the toxic dose, one would have to make a concentrated and painful effort to do so.  With mercury . . . well, not only is it NOT essential to our survival, it is poisonous at any level.  It's also something that persists in the environment without our awareness.  We don't ingest it purposefully.  There's not a "good for you" level followed at some point by a "that's too much" level:  it's all bad.  We don't need mercury; we need to avoid it.  It is the most poisonous substance that we get exposed to in our environment.

It's funny, because in her appearance on the O'Reilly Factor, Ann Coulter tried to use the same junk science logic to claim that the Japanese would enjoy anti-cancer benefits from their systemic exposure to radiation.  (Even Bill thought that one was a crock.)  She used the "naturally occurring" argument in her appearance and cited the lower cancer incidence among the Japanese, even those who've been exposed to radiation, as proof.  Seriously . . . if the Japanese in general have a lower cancer incidence than Americans, wouldn't it also follow that radiation-exposed Japanese people would have a lower cancer incidence than radiation-exposed Americans??? Come on.  Please.

So, be skeptical.  Be skeptical of me, too; it's what your brain is for.  All I hope to accomplish here is to get you thinking critically, and move us all forward together in the direction of better health for our kids. 

The right-left model is a zero-sum game.  Only by learning about our options, managing the information, and communicating our preferences can we advance toward a workable solution to this and other seemingly insurmountable differences.  We may never meet in the middle, but how about somewhere between the two extremes?  Because I can assure you, even though we may never meet in the middle, we will certainly never meet at an extreme.