Climate Change & the Clean Air Act
Bryan Walsh at Time has put up a good Q & A with EPA head Lisa Jackson. A sampling:
Time: The key point of argument is really these EPA regulations that could be coming on climate change. Can you outline quickly, what is the agency going to be looking to do on this issue?
LJ: As I’ve said before, we’re talking about common sense steps that get us started. Using the Clean Air Act, updating standards under the Clean Air Act to address pollution, in this case, greenhouse-gas pollution. In a common sense way, the Clean Air Act history, not the rhetoric, but the history of the Clean Air Act is that it moves in moderate steps that add up over time to pollution reduction. I think we can use the Clean Air Act to get started on greenhouse-gas pollution, as we have on other types of pollution, very successfully.
EPA head Lisa Jackson has a big heart and a very small head. It is not enough to dream of tomorrow being a better day, nor to simply fight the “powers that be” via internal directives and press releases. I predict she is going to actually accomplish little good for the country and her agency will suffer greatly for her simpleminded tactics.
Pascvaks reminds me here of that scene in Casablanca where General Strosser predicts the defeat of ‘blundering’ Americans.