Do what the administration and the NYT say, and be quiet
Kimberly Strassel comments in the WSJ on the EPA dust-up we discussed the other day, first quoting the global warming skeptic’s boss at the agency telling him to sit down and shut up in his dissent on cap and trade:
“The administrator and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision…I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office…With the endangerment finding nearly final, you need to move on to other issues and subjects. I don’t want you to spend any additional EPA time on climate change. No papers, no research etc, at least until we see what EPA is going to do with Climate.”…
the Obama EPA’s endangerment finding is a policy act. As such, EPA is required to make public those agency documents that pertain to the decision, to allow for public comment. Court rulings say rulemaking records must include both “the evidence relied upon and the evidence discarded.” In refusing to allow Mr. Carlin’s study to be circulated, the agency essentially hid it from the docket.
Perhaps we should just take the advice of Paul Krugman and stop being “deniers” and “traitors” — or perhaps implement this from Tom Friedman: “A simple, straightforward carbon tax would have made much more sense than this Rube Goldberg contraption. It is pathetic…It stinks. It’s a mess. I detest it. Now let’s get it passed in the Senate and make it law.” What impels these men to such righteous fervor, and to such apparent hysteria at dissent?