Cap-and-tax high energy tax attack on the poor and middle class is dead

Finally, a so-called Blue (moderate) Dawg Democrat stands up to the Hectorer-in-Chief, and conservatives could do a lot worse than for that democrat to be the Scots-Irish author of Born Fighting who famously tried to start a fight with the former occupant of the White House.

One of the most passionate and enduring dreams of President Barack Hussein Obama, directly consistent with the Marxist dreams of his Kenyan father, is that Americans learn a lesson from high energy prices even if it bankrupts the coal industry.

But the lesson Americans learned when gasoline reached $4/gallon two summers ago is that man-made global warming aka climate change was a fetish of an affluent society, a relic of the pre-Great Recession salad days.

The fact that ObamaDems’ cap-and-tax attack on the poor and middle class bill has been stalled for months concentrates the mind. Obama’s pending pilgrimage to the climate change revival required that the Nobel Messiah perform a miracle before his Transfiguration, so he had his EPA Gabriel issue a threat to his congressional subjects.

The threat got caught in a Virginia Webb:

Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) sent a letter to the president late last week warning Obama against agreeing to any binding climate change agreement during a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark this month.

“I would like to express my concern regarding reports that the Administration may believe it has the unilateral power to commit the government of the United States to certain standards that may be agreed upon at the upcoming [conference],” Webb wrote to Obama.

“Although details have not been made available, recent statements by Special Envoy on Climate Change Todd Stern indicate that negotiators may be intending to commit the United States to a nationwide emission reduction program,” Webb added. “As you well know from your time in the Senate, only specific legislation agreed upon in the Congress, or a treaty ratified by the Senate, could actually create such a commitment on behalf of our country.”

It appears that even if the pagan religion were true, Webb long ago decided that it would not justify the draconian measures desired by the Left, as evidenced by his appropriately puny bill to continue the Bush Administration research in wind and solar power.

But after the climategate emails showing the scientific data was fraudulent, all you hear now are death rattles.

There will be no new taxes on energy, just as Cockstradamus crowed two years ago.

I don’t think Charles Krauthammer need worry:

Not everyone is pleased with the coming New Carbon-Free International Order. When the Obama administration signaled (in a gesture to Copenhagen) a U.S. commitment to major cuts in carbon emissions, Democratic Sen. Jim Webb wrote the president protesting that he lacks the authority to do so unilaterally. That requires congressional concurrence by legislation or treaty.

With the Senate blocking President Obama’s cap-and-trade carbon legislation, the EPA coup d’etat served as the administration’s loud response to Webb: The hell we can’t. With this EPA “endangerment” finding, we can do as we wish with carbon. Either the Senate passes cap-and-trade, or the EPA will impose even more draconian measures: all cap, no trade.

Thank you for the clarity on this issue Senator Webb.

Now, how about Virginia tobacco?

Just as the EPA threat is based on a non-Congressionally approved, unilateral executive overreach “finding” that what humans breathe out is an “endangerment” to human health, so is the recent action by the FDA to regulate tobacco, but to only apply the law to “clove” and other flavored cigarettes as dangerous to children.

But just as the EPA can’t selectively apply its regulations only to big business, the FDA can’t just protect children. Adults matter too! The problem is that everyone knows CO2 is not a health hazard. Kim Strassel points out the legal problem:

But the EPA’s legal vulnerabilities go beyond that. The agency derives its authority to regulate pollutants from the Clean Air Act. To use that law to regulate greenhouse gases, the EPA has to prove those gases are harmful to human health (thus, the endangerment finding). Put another way, it must provide “science” showing that a slightly warmer earth will cause Americans injury or death. Given that most climate scientists admit that a warmer earth could provide “net benefits” to the West, this is a tall order.

Then there are the rules stemming from the finding. Not wanting to take on the political nightmare of regulating every American lawn mower, the EPA has produced a “tailoring rule” that it says allows it to focus solely on large greenhouse gas emitters. Yet the Clean Air Act—authored by Congress—clearly directs the EPA to also regulate small emitters.

The laws being passed by this ObamaDem Congress are disastrous enough (non-stimulus, $1.8T budget deficit, etc).The Republic can’t stand Napoleonic edicts and this conservative Republican is glad that at least one Democrat is willing to stand up for the separation of powers to protect We the People from the ideological leftist nut who garnered the necessary electoral votes to appoint 911-truthers and Maoists to the executive branch.

I suspect that Webb won’t be getting an invitation to White house parties given his Copenhagen executive overreach warning epistle, and we suspect that Obama won’t be making a get tough with John Conyers-type phone call to Webb as well.

The Secret Service’s diligence on party-crashers just got a priority alert. The problem is though, that the people who have invitations to White House parties and who occupy the offices are the danger, not tabloid moguls.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all verification links may be accessed.