From JoNova

By Jo Nova

In the end, we have to win the Science battle

Donald Trump is not just slowing down the Blobocrats-of-Climate-Control, he’s on a quest to destroy it at the source. He asked the EPA Chief, Lee Zeldin, to reconsider the 2009 Endangerment Finding, and the EPA chief has delivered. Without the Finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health, the central mechanism for US climate regulation disintegrates.

Skeptics Francis Menton and Anthony Watts are celebrating this historic win after years of work. But the quest is not over. Menton estimates that the official unwinding and legal battles could continue for the rest of the Trump Presidency. He hopes it will clear the Supreme Court before the next election.

Essentially the sacred EPA finding of 2009 was that atmospheric concentrations of six key greenhouse gases threatens both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations. At that moment, CO2, the building block of life, became also “a pollutant”. By issuing this “finding”, the EPA was therefore legally required under the Clean Air Act to regulate cars, houses, power plants, factories, hamburgers and your light bulbs.

Thus the Endangerment Ring binds all others, employs a million regulators, and centralizes control.  Ultimately, it corrupts all those on the sacred quest to control the weather (if they were not corrupt to start with). It’s power reaches right into your home and takes your money, and shrinks the shower-head too.

Like the Ring, the Finding is treated as sacred — “It shalt not be questioned.”  Like the Ring, the Finding was forged by an undeserving power — this large political decision was not set by elected representatives in Congress, but by bureaucrats using the Clean Air Act in a way its authors never intended.

And like The One Ring of Middle Earth, the Endangerment finding would corrupt even the good hearted. It is so toxic, it could not be used for good without being corrupted. And it makes the wielder of the power invisible — the hidden bureaucrats are the ones choosing what car you can have, or where you buy your oranges, or what kind of power stations you are allowed to buy electricity from. Soon they want to keep you in a 15 minute city…

In the words of Alex Guillen at Politico — “The rollback is the most audacious attempt yet by President Donald Trump to undo federal restrictions on fossil fuels.”

In some fields of science, The Blob owns almost all the scientists. Because the case was scientifically weak, those who even challenged the sacred Endangerment were cast as heretics or enemies of progress.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who was also on hand for the announcement, added that he asked five scientists who “have not been cowed by the politics of climate change” to conduct “an honest, credible, data and fact-driven assessment of climate change.”

“We want to end the cancel culture Orwellian future reality we’ve been in where climate change is not treated as a serious science, is treated as a political force to silence and shame people,” Wright said.

Also on Tuesday, EPA proposed scrapping all limits on carbon dioxide pollution from cars and trucks

As Francis Menton says: . The Big Question, is Can the administration get this process to the Supreme Court in time to avoid a reversal of this whole regulatory effort by a Democratic administration that could be elected in 2028?

As the shackles are released and the US Economy takes off — the last few nations still practicing climate sorcery will slow to a crawl. Whole nations will become the stranded assets.

There’s more detail at both the  Manhattan Contrarian and WattsUpWithThat.