on September 3rd, 2011 at 6:18 am

President Obama Stops New EPA Regulations From Being Imposed

in: Environment

So does anyone think this isn’t just a re-election ploy?

President Barack Obama on Friday scrapped his administration’s controversial plans to tighten smog rules, bowing to the demands of congressional Republicans and some business leaders.

Obama overruled the Environmental Protection Agency — and the unanimous opinion of its independent panel of scientific advisers — and directed administrator Lisa Jackson to withdraw the proposed regulation to reduce concentrations of ground-level ozone, smog’s main ingredient. The decision rests in part on reducing regulatory burdens and uncertainty for businesses at a time of rampant uncertainty about an unsteady economy.

The announcement came shortly after a new government report on private sector employment showed that businesses essentially added no new jobs last month — and that the jobless rate remained stuck at a historically high 9.1 percent. [AP]

This is the way I look at it, I really don’t mind clean air regulations because they have done great good over the decades cleaning the air around major US cities. Problem with these regulations however is that they should also be implemented as part of all the trade deals the US has signed. It is handicapping American businesses when foreign competitors can pollute with no environmental regulations and then import their goods to the US.

So the environmentalists are really not doing anything to protect the environment because the pollution from manufacturing just moves elsewhere. In actuality the environmentalists are probably causing more pollution by having the manufacturing done in a place like China that has little care for the environment instead of having it done in the US where manufacturing can be done with better care for the environment.

Tags: Environment, EPA

About GI Korea:

GI Korea has been blogging about Korea, Northeast Asia, and the US military for over 8 years.

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Teadrinker
7:16 am on September 3rd, 2011 1
“It is handicapping American businesses when foreign competitors can pollute with no environmental regulations and then import their goods to the US.”

That’s a disingenuous argument and here’s why: the United States was the largest polluter in the world for decades and has only become second after China in the last couple of years. So, the US pollutes more than everybody else but China…and which country sends the most goods to the US? It’s not China.
JoeC
7:28 am on September 3rd, 2011 2
#1

I see your point. BTW. I hope your countrymen will understand and don’t mind a little more acid rain until we get our problems squared away.
Teadrinker
7:40 am on September 3rd, 2011 3
#2,

You apparently missed the point I was making (and, yes, I’m fully aware that a great deal of the acid rain which falls on Canada comes from the US).
Teadrinker
7:42 am on September 3rd, 2011 4
…Or maybe I just don’t get your sense of humour (yes, ending in -our, as it should).
JoeC
7:54 am on September 3rd, 2011 5
#4

You got it this time.
Chris In Dallas
7:58 am on September 3rd, 2011 6
http://www.deanmorriscards.co.uk/images/medium/cards/DMA-84_MED.jpg
kushibo
8:40 am on September 3rd, 2011 7
GI Korea, I don’t think it’s just a re-election ploy.

I think the Obama administration has been realizing the economic crisis was far worse than anyone knew…

The White House looked at the economic situation [based on Bush43-era Bureau of Labor Statistics], sized up Congress, and took its shot. Unfortunately, the situation was far more dire than anyone in the administration or in Congress supposed.

Output in the third and fourth quarters [of 2008] fell by 3.7% and 8.9%, respectively, not at 0.5% and 3.8% as believed at the time. Employment was also falling much faster than estimated. Some 820,000 jobs were lost in January, rather than the 598,000 then reported. In the three months prior to the passage of stimulus, the economy cut loose 2.2m workers, not 1.8m. In January, total employment was already 1m workers below the level shown in the official data.

We can’t know exactly how things would have played out in a world in which key policymakers had better data. If the true scope of the economic disaster in the fourth quarter had been clear, however, it seems certain that Ms Romer’s models would have shown a need for more stimulus, that the White House would have agreed to push for more (and perhaps a lot more), and that Congress would have been much more receptive to a bigger bill. A drop of 8.9% does seem much more terrifying, after all, than a 3.8% decline. Bigger stimulus would have reduced the economic deterioration in subsequent months. The Fed might also have been more aggressive.

… and is not going to risk putting in place new regulations that might make the situation worse.

Jobs are being created, but the recent zero-growth stats for August, for example, were offset by 45K information workers on strike, while somewhat robust job growth in recent months was offset by a loss of government jobs as state and local governments cut spending.

We have a situation, described above in The Economist among other places, where the hemorrhaging of jobs was considerably worse than what we were being told but these stats were set right only recently, on top of a situation where deficits are finally shown as bad as they are actually are because Obama ended a Bush43 budgeting gimmick that obscured them.

In short, things are more of a mess than before — in January 2009 we were led to believe this was a sorta kinda serious fender bender but it has turned out that the whole front of the car has been smashed in — and so we have to avoid even rocking the boat a little in any way that might impede job growth, for now at least.

I don’t like it. But I think the apparent Republican tactic of threatening rash acts or talking down the economy just enough to erode confidence so that it will slow the recovery sort of necessitates it. Obama needs more backbone to stand up to those folks and tell it like it really is, but when Fox News, Townhall, and the Heritage Foundation have convinced millions that Obama “tripled” or “quadrupled” the deficit (sure, if Bush43 doesn’t get “credit” for the 2008 and 2009 budgets) and what-not, he may see that as too much of an uphill battle.
GI Korea
8:42 am on September 3rd, 2011 8
I don’t know what Teadrinker is referring to considering I did not criticize Canada, I criticized foreign competitors that don’t have the same level of environmental regulations as the US has. Canada obviously does have comparable environmental regulations unlike China.

By the way Canada may be the US’s largest trade partner but it is not the US’s largest importer, China is:

Canada:$387.9 billion in imports
China: $402. billion in imports

http://www.cnbc.com/id/31064179/America_s_Biggest_Trading_Partners?slide=10

Another country worthy of criticism is Mexico which is part of NAFTA. If you ever go to a Mexican border city the pollution created by the maquiladoras pumping out US bound goods is unbelievably bad.
kushibo
8:58 am on September 3rd, 2011 9
I wanted to treat this as separate, so I wrote it in a separate post. Also, if my posts are too long, Sonagi won’t read them.

GI Korea wrote:

Problem with these regulations however is that they should also be implemented as part of all the trade deals the US has signed. It is handicapping American businesses when foreign competitors can pollute with no environmental regulations and then import their goods to the US.

So the environmentalists are really not doing anything to protect the environment because the pollution from manufacturing just moves elsewhere.

It’s funny, because one of the ways in which the Korea-US FTA was made more palatable to the US side was by pushing South Korea to drop its across-the-board (i.e., for all vehicles, foreign or domestic) regulation that disincentivizes ownership of larger private vehicles through heftier taxes based on engine displacement.

In actuality the environmentalists are probably causing more pollution by having the manufacturing done in a place like China that has little care for the environment instead of having it done in the US where manufacturing can be done with better care for the environment.

Setting aside I think this argument — we can’t keep our own economy clean because then we’ll lose jobs to countries that don’t care — is a red herring being sold to the public by those who simply don’t like that stronger environmental protection may earn them marginally less profit, I think this problem should be dealt with otherwise.

International trading capacity has expanded far faster than environmental regulation enforcement in countries like China have increased (the technological capability of producing more and more large container ships that can quickly ply the oceans is a key factor in the “offshoring” of jobs, perhaps more than anything else). So if we still allow the products of the polluters to be sold in our country (be it South Korea, the US, Canada, wherever), then the marketplace of information should get going on, say, rating various companies vis-à-vis their own pollution. I’d donate money for such research if they did it objectively, accurately, and comprehensively.

Also, the US should not be making trade deals with countries that don’t approach American standards of environmental protection. South Korea is far closer than, say, Mexico or China. This is one reason I didn’t care for the Republican-pushed tactic of lumping the Panama and Colombia trade deals with the Korea trade deal. All three should stand on their own merits, but the GOP leadership realized that the less palatable Panama and Colombia deals (less palatable in part because of worker protections as well) might be pushed along in order for the gem (Korea) of the bunch to finally get passed.
Retired GI
10:21 am on September 3rd, 2011 10
It is only a re-election ploy. He needs the independents to get another four years.

No need to over think it.
ChickenHead
10:34 am on September 3rd, 2011 11
No matter how much Hope and Change you believe in, it is all negated by rolling blackouts.
Glans
1:39 pm on September 3rd, 2011 12
The pollution under discussion here is ground-level ozone, which stays local. Obama’s trying to improve the economy by poisoning us. If it’s an election-year ploy, it won’t work, because conservatives hate him just as much as before, and it won’t win any swing voters.

Humor, not humour, is the spelling approved by Cicero, Caesar, and the gods. Canucks should stop trying to be Brits – they ain’t foolin’ nobody.

I make my comments short and sweet, cuz I love Sonagi.
Retired GI
4:24 pm on September 3rd, 2011 13
#12, Nope. He is trying to get re-elected. Nothing else.
Teadrinker
8:49 pm on September 3rd, 2011 14
#8,

You’re trying to argue that the US is somehow being prevented from being competitive because of EPA regulations when it was the worst polluter for decades and is now only second after China. Think about that for a second.
GI Korea
7:00 am on September 4th, 2011 15
Teadrinker likes to play the holier than thou Canadian card but when you look at greenhouse gases per capita Canada is the equivalent of the US with 22.08 tonnes per capita of greenhouse gases and the US with 22.22 tonnes per capita. With the possible expansion of your oil shale industry in Alberta how much more is Canadian CO2 per capita going to increase?

Anyway pollution is more than just CO2 emissions. Things like soil and water quality, deforestation, and the impacts of mining are all important environmental considerations as well.
Expat
6:55 pm on September 4th, 2011 16
I have to agree with the simple truth noted by Retired GI # 13. It is a re-election ploy that is actually well understood and accepted by the Obama base. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/opinion/dowd-one-and-done.html

Please note the recent Maureen Dowd piece from the NYT (link above). Most importantly read the “comments” to Dowd’s piece. The most prevalent complaint from the NYT readers, a bit like Kushibo’s “backbone” comment in #7 above, seems to be that Obama has not yet declared a dictatorship of the proletariat. Now, that would show real backbone I agree. Most Libs, Progressives or Marxists, whatever you want to call them, fully understand the need for Obama’s strategic feint.

The KORUS FTA foot dragging by Obama is just one more of his myriad anti-business initiatves. EU-Korea trade is up 50% since their FTA went in place. The US auto industry (read Unions) arguments are 100% bogus when its a fact that the top three import cars in Korea by VOLUME are Mercedes, BMW and VW. How do US market Fords and Chevy’s fit in there when even Toyotas don’t? The US product does not match Korean market demand. An EU built Ford Mondeo with a 2.0L diesel would fit, but Ford wants the US profit margin and a way to keep its US unions quiet. It seems that Obama is willing to hang the KORUS FTA and all the US companies that would benefit from it out to dry mainly to placate US Unions. Here is a current list of Anti-KORUS organizations: http://www.causes.com/posts/519040?user_viewed=1

Sorry for long post.