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| June 10th, 2010 |
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Media Contact(s): Mark Eddington and Antonia Ferrier, (202) 224-5251 |
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Printable Version |
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EPA RELYING ON POLITICIZED DATA FOR CARBON REGULATIONS
Hatch Warns of Dire Consequences to U.S. Jobs, Economy |
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WASHINGTON – The Environment Protection Agency’s carbon regulations are based on politics rather than science and will cost American jobs and bankrupt the economy without any measurable benefit to the climate, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) warned today in a speech on the Senate floor.
“We are being asked to give up trillions of dollars in economic activity, send all new manufacturing activity overseas, give up millions of jobs, and put basic human activities under the control of the EPA all for a benefit that cannot be measured on a household thermometer after a hundred years of sacrifice and pain,” the senator said.
Hatch is a co-sponsor of the EPA Disapproval Resolution, which is aimed at blocking the federal agency from regulating greenhouse gases through the Clean Air Act – a disastrous decision that the senator and many of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle say will cost American jobs, bankrupt the economy and harm the nation’s global competitiveness.
In attempting to regulate carbon emissions, Hatch added, the EPA is basing its misguided policy on the findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), much of which has been distorted and politicized.
“I have no problem with much of the science produced by IPCC scientists, but I have a real problem with the way that science is summarized by the political leaders at the IPCC …,” the senator said.
Hatch’s remarks on the Senate floor follow:
Mr. President, I rise today as an original cosponsor of the Disapproval Resolution of the carbon regulations proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. I would like to start off by applauding Senator Murkowski for her strong leadership on this issue, and I stand squarely behind her effort.
To summarize what has already been laid out today, the EPA has released findings that, one, human carbon emissions contribute in a significant way to global warming; and, two, that global warming -- which has been going on for about 10,000 years now -- is an endangerment to humans. The EPA’s foundation for its proposal relies on the assumption that both of these findings are true.
Mr. President, I was sorely disappointed -- but not too surprised -- when I learned that the EPA based it’s “findings” almost entirely on the work by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the IPCC. I have no problem with much of the science produced by IPCC scientists, but I have a real problem with the way that science is summarized by the political leaders at the IPCC and by the conclusions drawn by those same political leaders in the IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers, which is not a science document. And it becomes immediately evident that the EPA relies very heavily on these political summaries and conclusions rather than actual science produced by the IPCC. Because we now have abundant proof that a wide gulf exists between what the science indicates and what the political leaders at the IPCC pretend that it indicates.
But I’m not asking anyone to take my word for it. Instead, let’s listen to what IPCC scientists themselves are saying about the conclusions the politicians at the IPCC have been selling to policymakers. Here’s what Dr. John T. Everett has to say, he was a UN IPCC lead author and expert reviewer, and a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) senior manager. He says: "It is time for a reality check. Warming is not a big deal and is not a bad thing, the oceans and coastal zones have been far warmer and colder than is projected in the present scenarios of climate change." Well there’s one of the IPCC’s top scientists saying that the warming we are experiencing is NOT an endangerment. Let’s hear from another scientist, Dr. Richard Tol. He was an author of three full UN IPCC Working Groups, and the director of the Centre for Marine and Atmospheric Science. He says, “There is no risk of damage [from global warming] that would force us to act injudiciously.” As an illustration, he explains that "warming temperatures will mean that in 2050 there will be about 40,000 fewer deaths in Germany attributable to cold-related illnesses like the flu.” What’s that, Mr. President? Here we have another top scientist at the IPCC telling us that warming will actually SAVE lives – not endanger them.
Dr. Oliver W. Frauenfeld, a contributing author of the UN IPCC Working Fourth
Assessment Report, sends those of us who are policymakers a serious warning. He says, “ Only after we identify these factors and determine how they affect one another, can we begin to produce accurate models. And only then should we rely on those models to shape policy." I hope my colleagues in the Senate are listening today, because these UN IPCC scientists are speaking directly to us. Mr. President I wonder at what cost to our economy and our competitiveness will we as policymakers continue to ignore the actual scientists at the IPCC. There is nowhere near a scientific consensus on either one of the EPA’s “findings” that humans are causing warming, or that warming is necessarily bad for humankind.
MIT Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen, another IPCC lead author and expert reviewer dispels the notion that there is a scientific consensus in favor of drastic climate policy. He explains, “One of the things the scientific community is pretty agreed on is those things will have virtually no impact on climate no matter what the models say. So the question is do you spend trillions of dollars to have no impact? And that seems like a no-brainer.”
Another top IPCC scientist and lead author was Dr. John Christy. He explained that the UN IPCC process had become corrupted by politics. He says, “I was at the table with three Europeans, and we were having lunch. And they were talking about their role as lead authors. And they were talking about how they were trying to make the report so dramatic that the United States would just have to sign that Kyoto Protocol.”
The politicization at the UN was so egregious, that Dr. Christopher W. Landsea, UN IPCC author and reviewer, atmospheric scientist, and expert with NOAA's National Hurricane Center pronounced, “I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound." Dr. Aynsley Kellow, UN IPCC Contributing Author and referee for the UN IPCC Fourth Assessment Report echoes this sentiment when he observed that “the scientists are in there but it is, after all, called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The scientists are there at the nomination of governments.”
Mr. President, there are many more UN and government scientists who have publicly expressed their professional opinions that the IPCC political projections are overblown and not supported by the science. I have put together a sampling of their quotations in a report called UN Climate Scientists Speak Out on Climate Change. It is available for download on my Climate 101 link on my webpage, and I ask unanimous consent that the full report be placed in the record at the end of my remarks.
Thank you Mr. President.
Now, I would like to address an issue that has been very carefully ignored by the EPA, and that is the benefit that Americans can expect from the EPA’s actions. As senators, not many of us are scientists, but each of us is a policymaker. And as policymakers we are expected to fully analyze the costs and benefits of any proposal that comes before us. The “endangerment” that the EPA points to is the warming we are supposedly causing. If warming is the “endangerment,” then the benefit is the amount of warming the regulations would avoid. And thanks to the IPCC, we have all the numbers and assumptions we need to be able to determine just how much warming we could avoid for the amount of carbon emissions the EPA can stop.
Mr. President, let’s go on the assumption that the EPA will successfully reduce human CO2 emissions in this country by 83 percent over the next century. Well, according to the alarmist (and some would say overblown) assumptions at the UN IPCC, Americans can expect a cooling benefit of somewhere between 0.07 and 0.2 degrees Celsius after a full hundred years of effort. That’s right, Mr. President, we are being asked to give up trillions of dollars in economic activity, send all new manufacturing activity overseas, give up millions of jobs, and put basic human activities under the control of the EPA all for a benefit that cannot be measured on a household thermometer after a hundred years of sacrifice and pain.
That also begs the question, Mr. President: If reducing CO2 emissions by a full 83 percent in the United States only reduces temperatures by less than 0.2 degrees, then what’s the logical argument that human emissions are causing an endangerment? No wonder so many actual scientists at the UN are trying to wave us off trying to control human carbon emissions.
The EPA tells us our human carbon emissions are leading to a general catastrophe, but then we find out that if we do what they say it will make no real difference. And so I would ask the EPA the Administrator this question: Have you done a real risk – benefit analysis of these proposed carbon emission regulations? I don’t want to hear all the scary scenarios about general global warming. I want to know the actual risks associated with a 0.07 to 0.2 degree decrease in temperature over 100 years. Because that’s what we’re talking about here. That’s the analysis I want to see. Because when you stack up the astounding costs on the scale against such a tiny benefit, you have the most lopsided and obvious failure of a cost-benefit analysis I have ever seen.
Mr. President there is no real climate knob the government can use to turn the temperature down. We’ve seen the simple calculation using the IPCC’s own formula and assumptions lead one to believe that this entire effort is less about trying to control our planets climate and more about using scary scenarios as an excuse to put most human activities under government control.
Dr. Richard Lindzen, the IPCC scientist from MIT said it best when he said: “controlling carbon is a bureaucrats dream. If you control carbon, you control life.” I wonder if the EPA bothered to talk to him about their endangerment finding.
Well, Senator Hatch is missing the point, the alarmists will say. They’ll talk about the global effect on the overall climate, on species, on habitat, on our deserts, and on sea levels. So let’s take a look at those questions, Mr. President.
Another point well hidden in the IPCC science is that, one, warming will result in more water vapor in the air; and, two, heightened CO2 in the atmosphere significantly increases plant growth and habitat.
I wonder if any of my colleagues have seen the article by the National Geographic Society published not long ago. The magazine reported that due to global warming and its accompanying increase in water vapor, the Sahara desert has shrunk at a remarkable rate due to global warming. Let me repeat that for those listening today. The Sahara desert had shrunk due to global warming and its accompanying increase in water vapor. The desert is experiencing a remarkable increase in vegetation and humans and other species are moving into new areas that have never been habitable in recorded history. I’d be very interested if anyone over at the EPA is aware of this gigantic benefit of global warming in the driest region on the planet. Mr. President, I ask that a copy of this article also be printed in the record following my remarks.
Mr. President, needless to say, there is a very strong case that the EPA is acting on assumptions that are in no way settled, and it is up to this body of elected officials to take control of this matter and ensure that the public interest is being protected.
Thank you Mr. President.
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