Thursday, June 10, 2010

Scott Brown Ideally Positioned to Restore Democratic Accountability on Climate Policy

By Kevin Mooney

After providing the decisive vote in favor of economically unsound legislation that would open the way for additional taxpayer-funded bailouts, Sen. Scott “it’s the people’s seat” Brown will have the opportunity to right his ship today when a resolution aimed at restoring democratic accountability is brought to the floor.

Sen. Brown is one of only three Republicans who have declined to co-sponsor a resolution that would negate the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) scientifically-dubious endangerment finding that declared carbon dioxide a pollutant. The measure cannot be filibustered and needs just 51 votes to win approval.

With public support for “cap and trade” schemes collapsing, the Obama Administration is working aggressively to impose environmental regulations without Senate approval. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who introduced S.J. Res. 26, has made it clear that her resolution was not designed as a referendum on the science of global warming but rather as a safeguard against extra-constitutional administrative activity that intrudes upon congressional authority.

Brown’s home state figures prominently in the equation here in that it was the 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA U.S. Supreme Court ruling that has helped fuel the EPA’s regulatory overreach. The court ruled that the agency needed to bring its practices more in line with the requirements of the Clean Air Act (CAA) but did not outline any specific regulatory requirements.

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