EPA's End Run Around Congress
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According to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, we no longer have to choose between the lesser of two evils: We can have both! (FNC)
This is a rush transcript from "Glenn Beck," December 11, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GLENN BECK, HOST: This week, I told you about the Environmental Protection Agency and the Obama administration, moving towards regulating greenhouse gases without that silly Congress standing in the way.
Who was it that said this last summer that Congress was quickly becoming irrelevant? Who was it? Who was it? Who was it? Who was it?
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(BEGIN JUNE 30, 2009 VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: I think Congress is overplaying their hand. More importantly, I think they're being outplayed and outmaneuvered. I think they're making themselves irrelevant to a massive new federal framework that Obama seems to be erecting with all kinds of czars and everything else.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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No, no. And that big financial bill — who is going to make the decision what is a danger to the economy? Who is going to do that? Oh, I'm sure it will be Congress. Congress, what the heck is wrong with you?
The EPA now has ruled that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases endanger humans and must be regulated. How dangerous is this gas? We breathe it out. Now, the feds can regulate the companies who emit these gases, companies like power plants and factories, you know, evil places that give people jobs.
But everybody in Washington knows it's going to hurt small business. It will kill jobs. So why would they do it in the middle of a recession? Answer? It's a way to — what is it that Cass Sunstein says — "nudge" lawmakers into passing cap-and-trade.
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You see, as we have learned from this guy, and this book — this is the book that was written in prison by a felon. David Axelrod says it is the blueprint for success. You can't really pick the lesser of two evils without on the evil more — I mean, more evil option on this side. This one is evil, but this one is really evil.
The EPA regulating business is the really, really evil option compared to the heaping bowl of cap-and-trade, which is just merely evil. If you don't get it, Democrats like John Kerry have spelled it out. And I'll speak slowly for anyone in Washington:
"The message to Congress is crystal clear: get moving. If Congress does not pass legislation dealing with climate change, this administration is more than justified to use the EPA to impose new regulations" — just like Genghis Khan.
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"Imposed regulations, by definition, will not include the job protections and investment incentives and proposing - that is being proposed in the Senate today. Given the proposal for agency regulation, those who now aim to grind the legislative process to a halt would rather come running to Congress to secure the kinds of incentives we can pass today."
If that sounds a little too vague, here is what an unnamed senior adviser to the president said while briefing reporters about jobs, by the way: "If you don't pass this legislation, then according to the Supreme Court decision, the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area. And it is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way. So it's going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty."
Don't you see what these people are doing? Evil and really, really evil. There is another choice, but it requires Congress to grow a spine.
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The EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, explained the EPA's new powers that could be used to complement legislation in Congress, not simply replace it. Watch this:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ADMINISTRATOR LISA JACKSON: I do not believe this is an either/or proposition. I actual actually see this as a both/and. I believe that the Clean Air Act can complement legislative efforts.
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(END VIDEO CLIP)
BECK: Oh, my goodness. Do I have my Bible? Because I think that might be in the Book of Revelations, part of one of the four horsemen. Wow. Evil and evil. We can combine them so we can have really, really evil and just evil and really, really evil.
I mean, I'm surprised that people in Washington just don't, once in a while, just come out and go, "Yes, this is what I want to tell you from the dark lord of the underworld."
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What's going on? They don't just want to regulate air. They now also want to regulate water.
Congress is moving towards changing government jurisdiction over water. Right now, the federal government can regulate and control all navigable waters. That means if it's large enough to put a ship in there and have traffic, then the feds control it and the adjacent waterways. But they just want to make a couple of — just a couple more, just going to nudge. Just a couple of words out of there.
"Navigable waters"? Yes, they're going to change that with "waters of the United States," because who uses the word "navigable" anymore?
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Really?
The feds now, with this couple of word change, will be able to control all this, all waters, which are subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, all interstate waters including interstate wetlands, all waters such intrastate lakes, rivers, streams, including intermittent streams, mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs — sloughs?
I don't I don't know what that is, prairie potholes, wet meadows, player lakes — I don't — is there where like, I'm a playa. I'm Tiger Woods. What is that? Natural ponds, all impoundments of water of the United States, tributaries of the aforementioned waters, the territorial seas, the wetlands adjacent to the aforementioned waters.
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Are you kidding me? They're going to be able to control everything but your bird bath. As a recent editorial in The Washington Times pointed out, "Enactment of the CWRA would surely spur massive court fights. The CWRA's regulatory overreach would, by all logic, run afoul of the Constitution's interstate commerce clause. How an 'intrastate' of the sort affected by this bill would qualify as interstate commerce is beyond normal reasoning."
Bad for business. Bad for jobs. Possibly unconstitutional. It will bring lots of lawsuits. Who is designing this stuff? Somebody I warned you about, regulatory czar Cass Sunstein.
(BEGIN JULY 2009 VIDEO CLIP)
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BECK: He is also an author of a theory in a book called "Nudge" which basically is, "No, you don't have to do anything. You just nudge people. You just tweak things."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN SEPT. 2009 VIDEO CLIP)
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BECK: He is really dangerous because nobody sees him coming. No. Nobody sees what the power that this man has, and while he is not a radical, his views are radical.
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He is not doing anything. He is just changing a couple of words. What? Pay no attention. Have more popcorn. Go to a movie. Go to the mall, shop, shop, shop. Whether it is a nudge, a push or a shove, this country is changing. It is transforming.
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A transformation a lot of Americans, mark my words, when they fully wake up and see the awful state that we are in, they will say, "not in my lifetime." They don't think we need it. They don't want it. But why should we be surprised? The president himself warned us but we continued to not listen:
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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.
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(CHEERS)
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