Rhino
04-09-2007, 08:42 AM
Guilty Until Proven Innocent
Friday, April 06, 2007
By Robert Tracinski
One of the most appalling recent trends is the way in which certain media outlets, such as The New York Times, have begun referring to carbon dioxide — one of the basic constituents of the atmosphere and a substance we all constantly exhale — as a "pollutant."
By that standard, everything is a pollutant. And that is, in fact, precisely the view that has now been endorsed by a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court. In Monday's ruling in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, the court held that the EPA is obliged to treat every substance on earth as a pollutant to be regulated, unless it can demonstrate why that substance is not a pollutant.
Actually, that's not precisely true. The EPA is not required to target literally every chemical component of our environment — just the ones that are produced by humans as part of our economic activity. The court's majority opinion cites the Clean Air Act, which defines an "air pollutant" to be "any physical, chemical...substance...emitted into...the ambient air." Emitted, that is, by humans. The emphasis on the word "any" was added by the court, which goes on to note that this "embraces all airborne compounds of whatever stripe."
In a puckish footnote in his dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia replies: "It follows that everything airborne, from Frisbees to flatulence, qualifies as an 'air pollutant.' This reading of the statute defies common sense."
But following the implications of this "everything is pollution" premise, the court concludes that the "EPA can avoid promulgating regulations only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change." If emitting carbon dioxide is not explicitly permitted by the EPA — then it is assumed to be forbidden. As my friend Jack Wakeland put it to me, the upshot of this Supreme Court ruling is that "industrial civilization is guilty until proven innocent.".....http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,264656,00.html
Friday, April 06, 2007
By Robert Tracinski
One of the most appalling recent trends is the way in which certain media outlets, such as The New York Times, have begun referring to carbon dioxide — one of the basic constituents of the atmosphere and a substance we all constantly exhale — as a "pollutant."
By that standard, everything is a pollutant. And that is, in fact, precisely the view that has now been endorsed by a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court. In Monday's ruling in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, the court held that the EPA is obliged to treat every substance on earth as a pollutant to be regulated, unless it can demonstrate why that substance is not a pollutant.
Actually, that's not precisely true. The EPA is not required to target literally every chemical component of our environment — just the ones that are produced by humans as part of our economic activity. The court's majority opinion cites the Clean Air Act, which defines an "air pollutant" to be "any physical, chemical...substance...emitted into...the ambient air." Emitted, that is, by humans. The emphasis on the word "any" was added by the court, which goes on to note that this "embraces all airborne compounds of whatever stripe."
In a puckish footnote in his dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia replies: "It follows that everything airborne, from Frisbees to flatulence, qualifies as an 'air pollutant.' This reading of the statute defies common sense."
But following the implications of this "everything is pollution" premise, the court concludes that the "EPA can avoid promulgating regulations only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change." If emitting carbon dioxide is not explicitly permitted by the EPA — then it is assumed to be forbidden. As my friend Jack Wakeland put it to me, the upshot of this Supreme Court ruling is that "industrial civilization is guilty until proven innocent.".....http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,264656,00.html