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The following opinion piece comes from Steve Dittmer and the Agribusiness Freedom Foundation:
The woman most dangerous to America's economy has announced she will leave her post in January.
Lisa Jackson, EPA administrator and the person most blindly loyal to man-made global warming dogma, no matter the (lack of) facts and the cost to man-made economies, has announced she will resign after President Obama's State of the Union message, according to The Hill, a Washington newsletter (“EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson To Step Down, 12/27/12).
We wrote after the election that while Obama had been elected for another four years, that didn't mean he would have real political power for that long a time. Benghazi, Holder's “Fast and Furious” and Jackson's scandalous disregard for law could definitely hobble his political clout, at the least.
Jackson has been one of the Obama lieutenants most willing to run roughshod over statutory limitations, most willing to allow bureaucrats to write their own rules (notice there was no Congressional debate over our new mileage standards this time) and totally ignore legal reporting requirements regarding her regulatory agenda. Most of all, time and again, Jackson has proven oblivious to the economic cost or the impact on industries and jobs from paralyzing regulations hobbling fundamental industries like oil, gas, electricity, transportation — in effect, all manufacturing and production.
Jackson's global warming ideological lineage traces to her former boss, Carol Browner, former Al Gore staffer and EPA administrator for Bill Clinton. Browner was named by Obama as his Energy Czar — probably because she didn't have to be confirmed by the Senate — which she probably couldn't have managed. We'll explain why in a minute.
Do you recall any debate in Congress regarding raising the EPA mileage standards for American automobile fleets? That the average is to be 35.5 mpg by 2016 and 62 mpg by 2025? No?
That's because there wasn't one this time. EPA under Jackson's watch just took it upon itself to issue that proposed edict in October, 2010, “A Notice of Intent.” How did this happen?
Because Carol Browner had been waiting for her opportunity. In 1998, her general counsel at EPA had issued a memorandum arguing that the EPA had the power to adopt sweeping global warming regulations without Congressional approval. Now, as Energy Czar, she had a disciple in charge at EPA who would not stop her and a president who loved getting around Congress. Phil Kerpen, in his book, “Democracy Denied,” explained how Browner, Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board, other regulators and the auto industry negotiated in secret. How secret?
<P>”We put nothing in writing, ever,” Nichols said. (“Democracy Denied,” BenBella Books, Dallas, 2011.)
So why is Jackson resigning now? We've only touched a bit previously on her illegal use of dummy e-mail accounts, apparently one under the name “Richard Windsor.” The suspicion is that she used alias e-mail accounts to coordinate and prepare new policy initiatives under the radar, avoiding any of the dreaded “transparency” Obama promised. Apparently, this is another trick Jackson learned from Browner.
Not only did Browner pioneer the use of alias accounts at EPA under Clinton but ordered her computer hard drive reformatted and the backup tapes erased after a federal court had issued a “preserve” order and, conveniently, before Clinton administration lawyers had told her she couldn't do that. This according to a story in the Daily Caller (“EPA Chief's Secret `Alias' E-mail Account Revealed,” 11/12/12). The beauty of the trick, as explained by Chris Horner, is that when lawyers subpoena the e-mail records of “Lisa Jackson,” they can't specify accounts they don't know exist or that exist under one or more aliases — or at least, they can't prove the official is omitting any accounts.
Horner, a fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), has written a new book, “The Liberal War on Transparency.” As we've reported, CEI has sued EPA to see all secondary accounts of EPA officials — both Jackson and Browner. By law, federal officials are to conduct official business under official accounts.
Mark Levin, radio talk show host and founder of Landmark Legal Foundation, is also involved in a separate suit against EPA, regarding EPA's failure to issue legally required reports detailing its regulatory agenda in both April and October of 2012.
The Inspector General and Congressional committees are investigating Jackson's activities.
While cynics will say EPA may find someone worse than Jackson to take over, we think the odds are good that it will be hard to top the crazed ideology and knowledge of institutional tricks Browner and Jackson brought to EPA. And surely Algore is too widely regarded as dotty on the subject.
While the term “fugitive dust” was not coined on Jackson's watch at EPA, she was the first official to try to ratchet the limits on “particulate matter” down to the level where pickups on gravel roads would violate Clean Air standards. Then there is the matter of counting your loads of manure.
Either way, Jackson leaves dozens of proposed regulations and new rules affecting nearly all productive industry and employment, with many impacts yet to be fully addressed. As shocking and far reaching as her bold attacks on the economy — one coal industry official termed Jackson's attack on his industry a “regulatory jihad” — the New York Times actually said that Jackson's departure “comes as many in the environmental movement are questioning Mr. Obama's commitment to dealing with climate change…”
So maybe Jackson is leaving because in four years, she has not made good on Obama's messiah-like promise to keep the seas from rising??
Source: Agribusiness Freedom Foundation
Posted by Haylie Shipp