Here’s a bit on the Supreme Court case from a White House briefing today. Marvel, if you will, at the sheer amount of dishonesty and misdirection packed into these few short paragraphs. Virtually every sentence, every word, needs unpacking.
It’s always been a talent of this White House to use a kind of shock-and-awe bullshitting strategy: lying so much and so fast that it simply overwhelms the ability of critics to keep up. I dearly hope that strategy goes down in flames with the rest of the administration.
Here it is:
Q With the court’s decision today, will the President direct the EPA to decide whether greenhouse gases contribute to the changing climate?
MS. PERINO: I saw that opinion, that ruling. There were several of them that came out today. We haven’t had a chance to review the opinion in full. People at EPA and across the government are going to have to do that. I can’t speak to the broader implications of the bill. One thing I can say is part of this case that was being argued was with respect to vehicles and regulating CO2 out of the tailpipe. And one of the ways that you do that is by making cars more efficient, so burning less gas, going more miles. And that’s precisely what we have been working to do with our increases in mileage standards for both light trucks, SUVs, and we have asked for that same authority in regards to cars. We don’t have that authority now, but the President asked for it two years ago, and then again in his State of the Union.
In addition to that, the other way you get there is by mandating alternative fuels and biofuels. And in the President’s State of the Union address he said that he wanted to get 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels mandated within 10 years. We call that the 20-in-10 program, which means reducing gasoline consumption by 20 percent in 10 years. The way you get there for our program is to increase CAFE standards and to increase these mandatory alternative fuels.
But in regards to this case — so in that regard, we are regulating the vehicle sector. As far as the broader implications about the case, we’re going to have to let EPA take a good look at it, and they’re going to have to analyze it and think about what it means for any future policy decisions.
Q Well, on a broader face, why did the administration and the EPA refuse to take a position on whether greenhouse gases cause global warming?
MS. PERINO: No, we — that’s actually not what the case was saying. We have long said that greenhouse gases are contributing to a warming planet, and that human-generated carbon dioxide is a large contributor to that aspect of it.
Q Then it wasn’t an EPA policy, which is what this case is about.
MS. PERINO: The question was — it is a legal question of whether or not the federal government has the legal authority to regulate greenhouse gases as a pollutant. And the prior administration said that they thought they had that legal authority, but they did not take action. We questioned whether we did have the legal authority. Now the Supreme Court has settled that matter for us, and we’re going to have to take a look and analyze it and see where we go from there.
(via Hugg)
