Obama's Anti-Global Warming Order Puts Another Boot On The Economy
Anti-Industry: The president reportedly will tell federal agencies they can't approve major projects until their impact on global warming has been weighed. Why halt commerce in an economy in dire need of more?
According to Bloomberg media, "President Barack Obama is preparing to tell all federal agencies for the first time that they should consider the impact on global warming before approving major projects, from pipelines to highways."
Bloomberg says Obama plans to "expand the scope of a Nixon-era law," the National Environmental Policy Act, "that was first intended to force agencies to assess the effect of projects on air, water and soil pollution."
It's happening just as Obama threatened it would: If Congress won't pass the laws he wants - in this case limits on greenhouse gas emissions - he will just make law on his own, without constitutional restraint.
At risk under such a regime are "natural gas export facilities, ports for coal sales to Asia, and even new forest roads," Bloomberg reports industry lobbyists as saying.
To that list we'd add fracking, which has produced a historic domestic energy, economic and employment boom.
This latest menace from the White House has, not surprisingly, alarmed the business community.
Ross Eisenberg, vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers, told Bloomberg that Obama's proposal has "got us very freaked out."
While Eisberg says he doesn't expect "the answer is ever going to be 'no'" from the federal agencies, he does anticipate delays.That reminds us of the hyper-regulating Food and Drug Administration, whose value as a protector of the public is far outweighed by its practice of keeping lifesaving and life-enhancing drugs off the market through its slow approval process.
Whether Obama's order results in delays or outright shutdowns of projects, it's bound to have a negative economic effect. One senses yet another hang up of the Keystone Pipeline is coming, as well as countless delays in enterprises the administration doesn't like.
The Obama economy, which is slogging through the weakest recovery in modern history, needs a jolt of commerce and industry. But the red tape made inevitable by Obama's further appropriation of power will depress the capital that's needed for projects that would have otherwise been started.
Rather than liberate the economy, it appears that Obama, who said Friday he wants another $2 billion from the taxpayers to pay for green vehicle technology, would rather have as many Americans as possible dependent on government - a government that he continues to expand and have greater executive power over.
It could be different.
By employing both his constitutional executive powers and his role as a leader Congress would follow, Obama could move government out of the way.
He won't. But he should. Because the stimulus doesn't come from more government spending. It comes from the private sector, where the action really takes place.
