I fail to see how it's the lawsuit and not the administration's decision to tell states to not follow the Bush 2008 rules while the administration was supposedly concocting new rules, that has led to the Bush 2008 rules not being followed. A lawsuit that apparently was never actually filed, by the way. If the Obama administration originally agreed with the critics that the Bush rules were too weak, it's entirely on them for failing to implement even those rules and then failing to come up with something better.
Oh, I read too quickly. The lawsuit was filed, but then the filers agreed to "hold off" on it. I'm not sure what that means exactly - was it withdrawn? - except that they probably shouldn't have trusted the administration.
I guess it's funny like when Lucy pulls the football out from under Charlie Brown yet again.
I don't know if we have a big ozone problem here or not. I know we have a particulate problem, because the giant coke plant is just up the river, but that seems to be a different regulation. If it helps, I took the bus once this weekend even when I had free parking and I tried to take it a second time, but it just didn't show up.
I also zealously advocated for the rights of pedestrians to cross streets legally, but I stopped short of throwing rocks. Which was well, as it turned out that I think it was my neighbor I was yelling at.
I really can't and shouldn't comment on this, but the Obama administration's action is a despicable outrage that is not even semi-defensible. On the other hand the change in the CAFE standards was good. On the other other, more depressing but realistic hand, the chance that EPA will issue carbon regulations, which really dwarfs these other issues in importance by a factor of a zillion, has gone from "minimal" to "zero."
I think Obama has always been a pretty mediocre environmental president, mostly in that it's not a key priority for him, but making people's health and the future of the planet pay the price for his macroeconomic first term blunders and current desperation jobs play is gross and evil, full stop. Centrist DC Democrats are horrific monsters, and that's true even if President Perry would be worse.
I should say, the chance that we'll get meaningful and aggressive carbon regulations out of EPA this presidential term is basically zero. They're sort of slow-phasing in some regulations in a way that will accomplish little and take forever. And not because of what anyone sane at EPA wants, either -- because of political pressure from the administration. As I say, horrific monsters.
I vacillate between thinking that they believe this will head off over-regulation criticism, that they believe the over-regulation criticism, and that they want to hedge their post-election employment prospects.
Then I put on my bob hat and think they are deliberately trying to demotivate the left by giving in to the right.
3: I guess it's funny like when Lucy pulls the football out from under Charlie Brown yet again.
'Elect a guy who will reverse idiotic half-assed decisions of his predecessor, get the idiotic half-assed decisions confirmed permanently.'
Or: 'The Meaning of Life Part VII: Live Organ Transplants'
It wasn't until the 2000s, for instance, that researchers realized ground-level ozone might actually be killing people, not just causing respiratory problems.
Oddly enough, respiratory problems are often known to kill people. {rimshot}
6: Centrist DC Democrats are horrific monsters, and that's true even if President Perry would be worse.
DLCers are the people who actually behave the way you were used to expecting of the nasty Republicans of yore. Republicans are the people who actually behave the way you were used to expecting of Nazis of yore.
Isn't it precious?
max
['Handy translation guide update: whenever you see 'neo-liberalism' substitute 'Davos Man Asspuppetry'.]
It would be nice if 50% of Americans did not live in counties which did not meet the current standard (I really do not know what the enforcement levers are since it is a secondary pollutant). Too bad we'll never see those fabulous liberal paradise 50s and 60s again when California was booming and ozone frequently popped above 400 ppb in LA.
Second "did" should be a "do". Mind your sequence of tense.
1, 2 -- I had the same questions. A quick check of the docket shows that the case is still pending, and that enviro groups had already lost patience, and last month asked the DC Circuit to order EPA do finish up it's new rulemaking immediately.
I would expect that the Circuit will order a briefing schedule pretty soon.
(Petitioners are American Lung Association, Appalachian Mountain Club, Environmental Defense Fund, National Parks Conservation Association, and Natural Resources Defense Council. I bet any one of them would be happy to see a donation.)
And it certainly appears from the papers filed in the case that the 2008 rule is in effect, and has been since May 2008.
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And it certainly appears from the papers filed in the case that the 2008 rule is in effect, and has been since May 2008.
Depends on what you mean by "in effect". Apparently publication of the regulation is just the first step. Then you identify regions not in compliance, next come up with plans to do something about it and finally start implementing the plans. This is a long involved multiyear process. The Obama administration had been delaying moving forward on the 2008 regulation on the grounds that it was being reconsidered. They are now (if Plumer is correct) going to delay moving forward on the grounds that a new rule is due in 2013.
So what happens now? Right now, most states are still operating under the old 1997 standards. The EPA had earlier directed states not to follow the (somewhat stricter) 2008 Bush standards, because it was working on even tighter rules. But now those tighter rules aren't happening. As Bill Becker of the National Association of Clean Ar Agencies told me, the EPA now has the option of directing states to follow the Bush-era rules, but that seems unlikely, given the White House's preference to wait until the 2013 review. Which means states would keep operating under the old 1997 standards, which are more lax than even what the Bush administration had proposed. "We would have stricter protections right now if we had just followed the Bush-era rules back in 2008," says Becker.
I quote from the January 2011 brief filed by Industry petitioners (which regard the 2008 rule as too strict):
The 2008 Ozone Rule has been in effect since May 27, 2008, 73 Fed. Reg. at 16436, and Mississippi and Industry Petitioners have now for almost three years had to take actions to comply with a rule that they believe to be impermissibly stringent and otherwise unlawful. Under EPA's proposed schedule for reconsideration set forth in the Revised Motion, Mississippi and Industry Petitioners will continue to be denied their right to have the 2008 Ozone Rule reviewed by this Court. 42 U.S.C. ยง 7607(b); Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422, 429-30 (1982) (depriving holders of an unadjudicated "chose in action" (a form of property) violates due process). When Mississippi and Industry Petitioners asked the Court in October 2009 not to hold these cases in abeyance, they noted that EPA's schedule for reconsideration of the 2008 Ozone Rule was "extremely aggressive" and was "inconsistent with the time the Agency has required to reconsider other, similar rules." Mississippi et al. Motion to Govern at 6. Indeed, this prediction was prescient; far from meeting that schedule, EPA now states that it cannot complete the reconsideration rulemaking until 11 months after its original, August 31, 2010 deadline. In opposing Mississippi et al.'s Motion to Govern, EPA stated that "this litigation would be effectively moot before briefing could be completed" because of the reconsideration rulemaking. EPA Opposition to Motion to Govern at 12. Although that might have been true had EPA completed its reconsideration rulemaking by August 31, 2010, as it had originally stated it would, briefing as proposed by Mississippi and Industry Petitioners in their Motion to Govern would have been completed in August 2010 (as calculated from the date of the Court's orders on the motions to govern) -- well before the July 29, 2011 deadline that EPA is now hoping to meet.
As detailed by Mississippi and Industry Petitioners in their October 2009 Motion to Govern, Mississippi and Industry Petitioners are suffering adverse impacts as a result of the 2008 Ozone Rule. Mississippi et al. Motion to Govern at 10-16. Although the Court may have determined that these impacts did not rise to a level necessary to justify a stay of the 2008 Ozone Rule, these impacts are enough to demonstrate that "a fair possibility" exists that Mississippi and Industry Petitioners are being damaged while these cases continue to be held in abeyance.
Given that EPA expected the new standards to be tougher, it really doesn't make any sense at all to have states disregard the 2008 rule.
Dumber things have happened, of course.
Opps -- should be an ellipsis between paragraphs.
There are also a bunch of states who petitioned, saying the rule was not strict enough: California Air Resources Board, City of New York, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, DC, State of California, State of Connecticut, State of Delaware, State of Illinois, State of Maine, State of Maryland, State of New Hampshire, State of New Jersey, State of New Mexico, State of New York, State of Oregon and State of Rhode Island.
Matt Stoller ...at Salon
Obama has ruined the Democratic Party. The 2010 wipeout was an electoral catastrophe so bad you'd have to go back to 1894 to find comparable losses. From 2008 to 2010, according to Gallup, the fastest growing demographic party label was former Democrat. Obama took over the party in 2008 with 36 percent of Americans considering themselves Democrats. Within just two years, that number had dropped to 31 percent, which tied a 22-year low.
Scarecrow vs Chait ...at FDL
I still think there is a plan to reshape the Democratic Party into the image of Chait, Berube, Yglesias, Summers, and Obama. "Identity Fiscal Conservatives" Urban Aspirationals. Something.
Even if we get a Carter -Reagan type landslide loss in 2012, these people (read Berube's disgusting atrocity at CT) will blame the left and economic redistributionalists...and of course, racism