Or can it?

Yesterday, the EPA issued a "finding" that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that threatens human health and can thus be regulated under the 1990 Clean Air Act.

This is a scientific farce. How can a basic constituent of the atmosphere that all humans constantly exhale be designated a "pollutant"? Moreover, water vapor is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, yet the EPA has not yet declared dihydrogen monoxide gas to be a threat to mankind.

This is also an assault on the entire structure of representative government. Controls on emissions of carbon dioxide will reach into every nook and cranny of the economy, creating a fine network of restrictions on economic activity that will make the recent regime of bailouts, salary caps, and business seizures look like laissez-faire by comparison. But it will all be done — in effect, it has just been done — by the decree of executive agency bureaucrats, without an opportunity for public debate or a legislative vote. Sure, Congress will be invited to "participate" in drafting carbon dioxide controls, but it will do so under the threat that the EPA can simply create those controls on its own, without needing to consult the people's representatives.

Ayn Rand warned that the environmentalist movement constitutes an "Anti-Industrial Revolution," but the term "revolution" implies a broad base of popular support. Instead, this is an anti-industrial coup, a seizure of power by a small elite who seek to bypass the institutions and procedures of legitimate government.

How did this happen? Through a usurpation of legislative power by the other two branches of government: the courts and the regulatory agencies of the executive branch.

The contribution from the courts is the 2007 Supreme Court ruling requiring the EPA to regard carbon dioxide as a potential "airborne pollutant" under the 1990 Clean Air Act — a law passed by Congress almost two decades ago with no intention of regulating carbon dioxide.

The executive branch's response was a document released last year that stopped short of declaring carbon dioxide a pollutant. But it did establish the legal foundation for the next administration to plan out and implement a comprehensive scheme for regulating carbon dioxide emissions, coordinating the actions of dozens of regulatory agencies.

Good Lord...

Jewish World Review