{"id":2475,"date":"2010-09-14T15:32:13","date_gmt":"2010-09-14T19:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicholsclan.com\/tinblog\/?p=2475"},"modified":"2010-11-24T09:45:05","modified_gmt":"2010-11-24T14:45:05","slug":"senate-set-to-slam-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/2010\/09\/senate-set-to-slam-science.html","title":{"rendered":"Senate set to slam science"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"No<\/a>
Created by Tim Nichols<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Senate Appropriations Committee is expected to vote this week<\/a> on whether or not to undercut the EPA’s intention to regulate greenhouse gasses.\u00a0 The specific wording of the amendment is not known, but support from both Republicans and moderate Democrats is likely to make it pass.\u00a0 While it should be under the purview of the legislature make such laws, of concern here is more the way it is being accomplished.<\/p>\n

The Clean Air Act (PDF<\/a>) is the responsibility of the EPA to administer.\u00a0 Section 202(a) of the act provides for the agency to classify new pollutants to be regulated based on studies done by the National Academy of Sciences, and also requires those findings to be submitted to the House.\u00a0 The House of Representatives is within its right to reject those findings.\u00a0 In fact, that was attempted back in June<\/a>, and the motion failed.<\/p>\n

Of concern is the wording of the specific motion<\/a>.\u00a0 The motion rejected the finding that CO2 poses an endangerment and that there is a human cause or contribution to greenhouse gas levels.\u00a0 In essence, they’re trying to rule on the validity of the science.\u00a0 They are saying they reject the National Academy of Sciences results and even reject the 2007 Supreme Court ruling<\/a> that found carbon dioxide a pollutant subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act. It seems that refuting all that data and analysis should require a bit more than a vote.<\/p>\n

It would be one thing if the Congress changed the Clean Air Act to specifically exclude greenhouse gasses or if they changed the process by which new pollutants are identified.\u00a0 But that is not the tack being taken.\u00a0 The Senate is trying a similar end-around by hobbling an appropriations bill.\u00a0 Again, basically saying to the EPA they are thwarting their legal ability and obligations to use the best environmental science available to make policy.<\/p>\n

There are certainly ample political reasons to sometimes ignore science.\u00a0 Fine.\u00a0 Say that.\u00a0 But discounting or demonizing science for political ends needs to stop.\u00a0 Science is not subject to legislation.\u00a0 It’s one thing to make the case that we cannot afford to deal with greenhouse gasses right now.\u00a0 It’s another entirely to claim greenhouse gasses are not putting us at risk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Senate Appropriations Committee is expected to vote this week on whether or not to undercut the EPA’s intention to<\/p>\n

Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-madscience","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2475"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2475\/revisions\/2901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}