The Coming EPA Onslaught

I just did a little more digging, and the EPA plan and the USDA plan look to be the same, but different. It appears to be a multipronged approach, in which more than one department is implementing the strategy, as well as individual states; with CA leading the way.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ceq/initiatives/adaptation

http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/adaptation/

http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/eea/energy/cca/eea-climate-adaptation-report.pdf

Am I the only one that didn't know about this until a couple of days ago?

Conspiracy theorists have speculated that the EPA has been using drones to spy on farmers; this is false. They have been using manned aircraft.

Here is the workaround for US drone use for "inadvertent" information collection:

http://cbsla.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/drones1.pdf

The world these days is pretty scary. Anything can be possibly done remotely.

There's that; and the fact that many of these new regulations will be in accordance with UN protocol.

I ran into the Airforce document by accident. It's chilling, to say the least.

I know this is a lot of reading, and that most people have no interest, but I was also unaware that the the EPA was brought into the fold with FEMA and the DHS:

http://www.epa.gov/dced/pdf/2011_0114_fema-epa-moa.pdf

A few clips:

Smart growth approaches cover a range of development and conservation strategies that help protect our natural environment and make our communities more attractive, economically stronger, and more socially diverse.

EPA intends to partner with FEMA's FIMA and ESF #14 staff to incorporate hazards resiliency guidance from hazard mitigation planning and recovery programs into EPA's Smart Growth Program and as EPA develops its climate adaption strategies for the built environment.

To carry out the joint work resulting from this MOA, each agency may need to disclose confidential information to the other. For the purpose ofthis MOA, confidential information is defined as information that an affected business claims to be confidential and is not otherwise available to the public or information that would be protected under the Privacy Act or similar law.

I thought they told us that the DHS was to stop terrorists?

Here's the entire Air Force document. It's essentially justified domestic spying:

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/usaf/afi14-104.pdf

It's too late. I was just late to the party. They will be able to access our homes too.

http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/healthy_homes/advhh

http://www.trevorloudon.com/2013/02/homeowners-vs-epa-home-invasion/

Cheers.

Worried about fracking? Don't be.

If any equipment on the fracking site is fueled by diesel, the entire operation will come under the scrutiny of the EPA, under the CWA.

http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/class2/hydraulicfracturing/wells_hydroreg.cfm

"While the SDWA specifically excludes hydraulic fracturing from UIC regulation under SDWA § 1421 (d)(1), the use of diesel fuel during hydraulic fracturing is still regulated by the UIC program. Any service company that performs hydraulic fracturing using diesel fuel must receive prior authorization through the applicable UIC program."

What that means is they are regulated by this if they use diesel fuel for the fracking fluid not if their equipment runs on it.

Thanks. They didn't specify. They just said any service company that uses diesel fuel during fracking.

I wasn't aware that we were pumping diesel fuel into the ground, either.

I'll let you handle that can o worms.

Sure enough! I just learned something new. I'm sure there won't be any problems with that.

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/marcellusshale/congressional-panel-finds-diesel-fuel-in-fracking-fluid-212342/

No, no, no - nobody pumps diesel into the ground for fracking!!!

Most of what goes downhole is non-potable water, like you would have on any construction site.

The law does specifically refer to the diesel engine powered equipment - this is how they seek to 'outlaw' fracking without acutally outlawing fracking. Tier-4 compliance is not sufficient.

I know, I build evil frac equipment - powered by natural gas.

Thanks for that. That's what it sounded like to me.

I'm not going to hold my breath for an apology, but at least a couple of our members got to learn something.

No apology due.

Perhaps you could try reading your own links, and then reflecting on what they might mean.

All that the use of diesel fuel as part of fracking fluid requires is a permit, as has been the case for years. It is not illegal to inject diesel fuel. It is illegal to inject it without a permit.

Drink less, think more.

I can see how, being in the industry, you would want to deny the practice, however, you are incorrect.

"The industry has been saying they stopped injecting toxic diesel fuel into wells. But our investigation showed this practice has been continuing in secret and in apparent violation" of the Safe Drinking Water Act, said Mr. Waxman, the panel's senior Democrat and a former chairman.

The investigation found that 12 of 14 companies hired to perform hydraulic fracturing, also known as "fracking," used diesel alone or in a mixture from 2005 to 2009. Of the 32.2 million gallons reported, most was injected in Texas, followed by Oklahoma, North Dakota, Louisiana and Wyoming.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/marcellusshale/congressional-panel-finds-diesel-fuel-in-fracking-fluid-212342/#ixzz2KtZMMCsB

The CWA (clean water act), and the UIC (underground injection control) does not regulate diesel gaseous emissions, with respect to this issue. The EPA regulations are common sense, and easy for many companies to comply with. Oil spill issues rom diesle refueling, for example also do not fall under UIC.

You may not have read this thread, but Kramarat is claiming that the CWA regulates all diesel engine uses around fracking sites. That is untrue, and the quote he provides in bold letters refers to the use of hydraulic fracturing using diesel fuel. The other issues around diesel engines, such as gaseous emissions and oils spills are covered under different parts of the laws. There has not been some draconian shift in policy, as Kramarat seems to be claiming.

Many people (who are unfamiliar with fracking) be horrified to learn that the all it takes to pump diesel fuel and other toxic substances into the ground is a permit. That is still the case.

Hi Ken,

I read your link. Nobody here has ever heard of such a thing. Even if it worked, I don't know why anyone would do it from a cost point-of-view. Water is much cheaper!

I'm not sure why an operator would inject ~580 gallons of diesel down hole (this was the only reported incident of diesel being injected - once in a Pennsylvania well, and probably by an unscrupulus 'mom-&-pop' frac company; there are many small independents out there trying to make a buck, and right now things are tight) unless they just didn't want to dispose of some bad or contaminated fuel in the proper manner - that I could see. It isn't really a legitimate fracking fluid, as far as anyone in my operation or customer companies have heard of.

You will not see that type of behavior from a major company. They don't want to do things like that, really. And they know the consequences (which they shall now suffer due to some schmuck)

We pump water and sand downhole. Occasionally some acid is injected to help get a crack started, but the idea is to minimize the use of expensive/exotic/potentially dangerous chemicals.

Anyway, I am on the horsepower generation and transmission end of things. And yes, since I build the stuff, I normally don't comment, even when I see things I know are incorrect. It always seems to become an argument of some kind. At least people are passionate about things.

Watch the documentary "Frack Nation" as it will open up your eyes regarding the BS political agenda perpetrated by the Lamestream Media, rock huggers and the political Leftest Elite. There is a ton of disinformation and out and out lies regarding hydrofracking and this doc exposes the falsehoods.

Regarding the EPA's new statutes: you know who to blame for that pile of BS and it isn't George Jr. either.

I can't agree with that one, Moosie.

While I don't think it was intended, the Patriot Act and the formation of the DHS, is what set the table for this utter and complete abuse of authority.

I'd like to see that documentary, but I don't think it will matter. Anybody that is currently involved in fracking, using equipment that runs on diesel fuel, and didn't go through the permitting process, is in violation of the law. Once the rest of this stuff is implemented, (this year), I suspect that the trap will snap shut.

The fracking engines can all be converted to run on natural gas. This is currently being done by Apache. This also helps reduce flaring.

Wrong Ken. I have intentionally left out political links, and only used government sources. I am not interested in political fights....as you apparently are.

CO2 was labeled as a pollutant in 2009. As a pollutant, it will be regulated by the EPA. 2013 is the year that all of this will be implemented. If you honestly believe that this has no impact on manufacturing or engineering, you are hopeless, and I'd recommend you refrain from posting to the thread, as your posts have grown increasingly aggressive lately.

I am certainly not the only person that thinks this is important:

http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/its-official-epa-finds-greenhouse-gases-endanger-public-health.html

and I'd recommend you refrain from posting to the thread, as your posts have grown increasingly aggressive lately.

I appreciate your taking the time to make that recommendation, which I will not hesitate to ignore.

Sorry If I come across as aggressive. I just have low tolerance for anti-scientific anti-government gibberish in which utter and total falsehoods are presented as fact.

For instance, consider your claim: "If any equipment on the fracking site is fueled by diesel, the entire operation will come under the scrutiny of the EPA, under the CWA." I can't seem to find a more polite phrasing here: This is idiotic.

No. It is worse than idiotic. It is much worse than ill-informed. It is a flat lie. Diesel fuel comes under the CWA when ... DUH... it has the potential to get into the drinking water, by using it as a component in fracking fluid. Diesel engine emissions already fall under EPA regulation! In what cave do you live? CWA = Clean Water Act. Get it?

It's not that I am "increasingly agressive" (ask any of the HHO freaks who use to show up here all the time -- I'm pretty laid back now) it's that you are "decreasingly credible". I've always had a low tolerance for incredible BS. If you were writing more about things you know about and less about the things you don't, then I would not be appearing aggressive to you.

I didn't realize that posting links to government sites was anti science and anti government. I do recall you lashing out at Faux news, republicans, and religion, on a thread that asked about the weather.

I posted the quote from the EPA site, in regard to fracking and diesel. Sorry if I was unable to read between the lines. I saw no indication that they were referring to pumping diesel into the ground.

But you are correct, and GAs for you. A discussion about the possible impact of pending EPA regulations, in regard to CO2, has no place on an engineering forum whatsoever.

Lets forget it happened and get back to commenting on funny captions and broken Cavaliers.

Lets forget it happened and get back to commenting on funny captions and broken Cavaliers.

Not likely that I'll forget. Not likely that I want CR4 to be all about funny captions.

I didn't realize that posting links to government sites was anti science and anti government.

You are pretending to have missed my point. Earlier, you wrote "your posts have grown increasingly aggressive lately" Those posts have been in response to your anti-science posts in the a climate change thread and anti-government posts here. So no, your posts in this thread are not anti-science, per se. (But you were clearly not referring to just this thread.) And as should be stunningly obvious, it is your writing that is anti-government; posting a government link is not anti-government. Your series of posts here are quite clearly anti-EPA, anti-Patriot act, anti-Homeland Security, anti-UN, etc.

Your OP, in your verbiage, titled "The Coming EPA Onslaught" (as if the EPA is at war with the US) is obviously anti-EPA. You write:

• you and your company will be affected; not in a good way
• shrouded in the "feel good" language
• sweeping regulatory authority across multiple government agencies
• This is not conspiracy; it's real,

Your first post alone certainly has an anti-government and political feel. Otherwise you might have said: "Here is what the EPA plans to do to help the country adapt to climate change." Then give the two links and be done with it.

But then why would you present that at an engineering sight? The documents have virtually nothing to do with engineering. They are boring reading, and the typical federal agency stuff: they say "We will try to do something to help, if we can." You have to have an incredible imagination to whip that up into something threatening.
Then in post number 2, before there has been any response at all indicating that others might actually be interested in this stuff:

• Conspiracy theorists have speculated that the EPA has been using drones to spy on farmers; this is false. They have been using manned aircraft.

In post 3 someone buys into your conspiracy theory:

• The world these days is pretty scary. Anything can be possibly done remotely.

In your next post, you respond:

• There's that; and the fact that many of these new regulations will be in accordance with UN protocol.

(Suggesting what? That the UN is "in on it" too??)
Then this:

• I ran into the Airforce document by accident. It's chilling, to say the least.

And then this:

• I know this is a lot of reading, and that most people have no interest, but I was also unaware that the the EPA was brought into the fold with FEMA and the DHS:

(OMG, they are in on it too??!!!)

And you continue on... and on ... and on.

I have worked for NIH and DARPA. I've worked closely with the EPA, OSHA and the FAA. Good people throughout. Much of my industrial work had to do with helping ensure that EPA and OSHA requirements were being met. (I have a certificate from a university near you, NCSU, in MESH -- Manager Environmental Safety and Health.) So I share none of your fears of government agencies, and can cite numerous cases and situations in industry where, even with the laws in place, companies still ignore what most people would consider common sense. "What? Why can't we dump 55 gallon drums of toxic waste into the reservoir?" "Why can't we let our pig farm runoff kill thousands upon thousands of fish in the Pamlico sound?"

So we have very little in common.

But that is not the main point. The main point is this: This garbage does not belong in CR4. Go to Loudon's site (you linked to it above) -- they love this stuff. There, they will be thrilled when you use foul language to insult others as you did here just a couple weeks ago.

Well, I guess you can have the last word. I won't bother posting EPA horror stories...or that the DHS will now be charged with going after CO2 rather than terrorists.

I hope you're right; and that the government is just wasting massive amounts of time and money by implementing these policies.

Have fun!

Mark, I'm not contributing to this thread but this...

"and I'd recommend you refrain from posting to the thread, as your posts have grown increasingly aggressive lately."

...coming from you made me howl with laughter, he has almost caught up to you

He's working on it.

This is not conspiracy; it's real, and if you think you won't be touched by it, you are wrong.

Spoken like a true conspiracy theorist.

You have not clearly stated what "it" means in "touched by it". What it your fear, and what in the document supports this fear?

The EPA document is full of the most namby-pamby wishy-washy politically safe drivel one can imagine. It says that we are going to do nothing about climate change other than to attempt to adapt to it, after the fact. This is in contrast to the approach taken by most other developed nations where they are actually trying to reduce the triggers of global warming that are within our control.

Is your concern that the EPA is not doing enough?

Ken, this new law does prohibit the use of other EPA approved diesel engines - this is *specifically* for fracking operations.

All other oil field applications of diesel prime-movers (generators, hydraulic power units) falls under EPA Tier-4 requirements now. All of the old Detroit 2-strokes and Deutz air-cooled engines are done and gone.

So this is just like the 'light bulb ban' discussed so much before here - it isn't a ban on fracking, it just makes it impossible to do with the current technology.

Cummins, Cat, et al, are scrambling to get their engines up on NG, but the available horsepower just isn't there yet (even though they all have good advertising)

I know this because I build frac equipment with natural gas fired turbines that vastly exceed the Tier-4 requirements - very clean efficient engines...

Ken, this new law does prohibit the use of other EPA approved diesel engines - this is *specifically* for fracking operations.

To what new law are you referring? This discussion regarding fracking has been about injection of diesel fuel into the ground, something that has required, and still requires, a permit. Kramarat is completely misrepresenting the law, and you also appear to be doing so... or perhaps have not read this thread.

I can't find it either. From what I can find, it only pertains to the injecting fluid.

On the other hand, what they are doing, is expanding the definition of diesel fuel to include any components in the fracking fluid that share a commonality with diesel fuel......Benzene for example.

I can link it if you want.

There are some looming changes in the industry. Acutally I would have to start researching the actual law - it is an EPA reg. specifically for exhaust emissions.

We just had an emissions testing company here certifying our gas turbines on both diesel fuel and natural gas. We are doing lots of R&D to get our engines dual fuel - that is diesel/kero/jp-x (liquid fuel, pretty much anything but gasoline) and natural gas. It's difficult without a redesign to the combustor but we have achieved. At some point, the liquid fuel capability will go the way of the dodo. And the current push is to run off of the field gas itself which is good for the operator and the environment. A rare win-win.

The conventional units are out there running now, but soon they will have to switch to natural gas to meet emissions standards, and as of now, the hit they take in horsepower is unacceptble (we are talking 1000+ hp recips).

I'll have to dig into this more - I am the man in the trenches, so to speak. I do what my masters tell me, and this is something they are pushing hard.

From the initial discussion point, and since pumping diesel fuel downhole as a fracking fluid makes no sense whatsoever, and knowing this is brewing within the EPA, I thought this is what the o.p. was referring to. So I'll go back under my rock now. Maybe next time I go on location I can take some video for the group, so everyone can see just what is going on. I won't try to defend fracking as it just seems to get everyone fired up, and, I'm not a treater anyway - I am a turbine/gearbox guy.

Sounds like a fun job!

I started the thread because I believe that an all out war on carbon will severely undermine our ability to compete in a global marketplace.

I also feel that engineers, not only have a vested interest in this type of regulation, but are probably better qualified than most anyone to analyse it in a rational manner......or so I thought.

While I'm not paranoid, I have a very healthy distrust in government; it doesn't matter what party is in control. I also think that those of us that are US citizens, have a responsibility to question- both the motives and methods of our government.

While we have an ambassador and his personnel, as well as the kids that we are sending off to fight a continuing war on terrorism, coming home in body bags, I feel as if I have a duty to question the logic of re-purposing the mission of the DHS into combating CO2. I'm completely willing to take any CR4P that is thrown in my face.

Thanks kramarat, it is fun (and quite stressful - but we are doing something here that the majors tried back in the 60's, and failed)

I replied to the thread because I was trying to understand the regulation you were citing - pumping diesel downhole makes as much sense to me as pumping cotton candy down there, especially when every frac hand out there knows we are being watched, and that we are (obviously) not popular these days. All it takes is one bad apple...

cheers from way down the bayou

That's what I thought. Why are we using fuel to get fuel?

But we have been. Quite a bit actually. I guess there's something about diesel that makes fracking work better, although they are quickly getting away from it.

It seems incredible (in other words virtually impossible to believe) that someone involved in the industry could be so uninformed about the process. I used to work in the coal industry (right out of college) and at least understood the basics of underground mining.

Have you not heard of the Haliburton loophole? This is the exemption that allows fracking operators to hide what they are pumping into the ground. In every other industry, you cannot pump stuff into the ground (or pour stuff onto the ground) indiscriminately. A potential fix to the loophole (the loophole having been put into place as a $favor to the fracking industry) is the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act (H.R. 1084). Of course, the industry wants to keep their chemical mix secret. They like to portray this as "trade secret" info -- but they all use essentially the same mix -- safe assumption is that they only want to hide the most toxic components and the VOCs. The industry as a whole would like people to think, as you claim to think, that it is just sand and water. But even the industry realizes that only the profoundly naive would accept that explanation, because every reasonably educated person has heard about the Haliburton loophole.

So even the industry promoters talk about some of the stuff in the fluid, and try to make it look like stuff you find in food.

(From this pro-fracking site.)

When I was in a peon in the coal industry, I had the MSHA regs book right on my desk all the time, even though I was just a tech writer writing about how to fix the equipment. Everyone in my company knew the gist of the laws and how mining was done. Seems really really odd that you would not know the basics of fracking.

This is the best reference on fracking fluid that I have. Straight from Haliburton:

http://www.halliburton.com/public/projects/pubsdata/hydraulic_fracturing/fluids_disclosure.htm

Fracking has been going on fro decades with very few problems, compared to the great good it has done by replacing coal burning. We have far surpassed Europe in eliminating coal pollution including CO2 emissions. They pay three times as much for power as we do, and are importing coal from us. They have seen the light now, and are about to start fracking, using best practices.

We run tier4 all the time past three years plus tier 2 and 3 with scr units without a decrease in power for our crushing asphalt and concrete plants we usually run anywhere from a 1100 hp unit to 1850 unit. New regulations not a big deal because the are occurring same time old equipment needs to be removed.

Who makes your frack engines? What is the horsepower per each? Do you work with Apache or Haliburton?

Ken,

I'm sorry. I didn't come here to argue - thought it was friendly discussion. I guess you can tell by my screen name there may be some things we differ on (i am ok with that) but it doesn't make me an uninformed dummy.

I was questioning the original post; that is all - never heard of diesel going down a well. That is all. Neither have the folks I work with.

As I said, I am not a treater. My job is to deliver torque to the pump pinion.

At this point, I respectfully bow out of the discussion on frac chemicals.

Ron,

We are using aviation-based gas turbine (helo) engines. We have some units with T-55 engines and some with TF40's. We're asking them to push ~2500 hp pumps. We have single quint-pump bobtail trucks and can fit two triplex units on a single trailer. It cuts the number of trucks on the road and location in half, not to mention the power density in tough locations. Our units are also cam-locked to the trailer and can be set down as individual pumps on the ground. The recips can't touch us on emissions, and we still make 100% rated power on natural gas.

As for Apache and Big H, well Halliburton would love to squash us - our little upstart is a threat apparently; they've run jobs for less than the cost of the fuel, just to keep us off location... Most of our work is in the Eagle Ford with Shell right now.

Well I sure hope you guys can keep it working and grow. It is quite an accomplishment to come up with something like that, and beat out the big boys. I am very impressed. I don't know much about engines, but I know that Caterpillar does, and they do have some mighty big engines that run on natural gas. I keep an eye on all the natural gas stories I can, and try to increase the use of this cheap clean fuel. My blog is at ronwagnersrants.blogspot.com I have almost 5,000 select story links with annotations and some pictures.

Actually, I hadn't noticed the specifics of your screen name. I'd love to have one, if I had the space and the time to treat it well. I've spilled more unburned fuel into the sky flying aerobatics for an hour than your SS puts into the air in a week.

Sorry if I offended, but you can probably understand that it seems strange to have someone in the industry not know how things are done.

When you wrote "No, no, no - nobody pumps diesel into the ground for fracking!!!" you were pretty strongly contradicting TCMtech, you'd probably agree. So you can perhaps see why I might think you were being less than sincere, and how that might foster an argument.

I am not defacto anti-fracking by the way. A do tend to be against treating these issues frivolously. I grew up breathing in asbestos that hung in the air in pounds (literally) and my father in law died of mesothelioma. If we had an effective EPA then, he might still be around and my chest x-rays would be clear.

CR4 prohibits political discussions, so I get a bit crankier than usual with ones like this that really have nothing to do with engineering solutions to changing EPA regulations, and everything to do with advancing a particular (and particularly extreme) world view.

Well, let me qualify what I meant with Nonono: fracking does use lots of water - it is a real issue. Really it is. Millions of gallons. The volume of water required is just a reality of the scale of the operation. So the thought of a frac job running diesel fuel downhole at maybe 100 barrels-per-minute at 12,000 psi for hours on end just made my head spin - like I hope nobody out there thinks that's how these jobs run! Fuel costs are hard enough to deal with when you're *burning* the fuel! That's all... I hope you see what I mean now.

The guys here thought it was bizarre to even suggest using diesel as a frac fluid. They asked if I had been drinking some diesel...

If somebody somewhere does it, news to me. The stuff in the chart you show - yep, seen all that - I can assure you it's used sparingly, if for no other reason, it costs money to buy it and transport it to and from location, store it, disposal - they'd rather not use any of that stuff.

Although, I can see some jerk disposing of some algae infested fuel on a job. Would not be shocking. If we tried it, we'd never work for our customer again - they are committed to cleaning up the image of fracking, which is why they are working with us. Soon we should be able to run our turbines on gas from the field we are producing, which would be huge for the industry.

"The EPA document is full of the most namby-pamby wishy-washy politically safe drivel one can imagine. It says that we are going to do nothing about climate change other than to attempt to adapt to it, after the fact. This is in contrast to the approach taken by most other developed nations where they are actually trying to reduce the triggers of global warming that are within our control."

It sounds like you have bought the bogus science of man-made global warming. We aren't that significant in the Universe to cause this! That isn't to say that we can't/won't affect our immediate surrounding/environment by way of pollution, we can, but we don't have world wide impact to change long-term patterns.

To say that the EPA, OSHA and other government regulatory agencies aren't out to squash particular industries is naive. They are given direction from those who control their function with a mandate to kill those industries and hurt our economy. Remember bho's comment that "he was going to make the coal plants so costly to operate that they wouldn't be profitable? That resulted in very high energy costs, high unemployment in regions of coal production, etc. That direction is given by a government administration and liberal beauracracy who wish to see us become "like everyone else. We shouldn't be exceptional in anything." According to them.

We need to be good stewards of our environment and let's base it upon common sense and unbiased science from people without an agenda or an axe to grind.

Howzabouta little jargon? The real question here is remediation of unaddressed externalities. Externalities are things that happen as a result of other activities, like extracting natural gas. Things like methane leaks, groundwater pollution, noise, destruction of viewscape, traffic. Of course the financiers of natgas exploration and production don't care, because they insulate themselves from them by living elsewhere, or buffering themselves with their money. The people who do the actual drilling, trucking, fracking, pipelining don't care either. But the damage IS done. So who can do anything about it? The government, which steps in when the greedy get carried away. Same old story. And the fools who listen to the carefully planted anti-government lies have no idea what they're doing. I think we used to call them dupes. You want to do paranoid research, just look up the propaganda budget of the natgas and oil fracking companies. BIG BUCKS, to ruin the environment and not pay the costs.

Without calling you names, I can only say that you are poorly educated on the subject. Fracking has been going on for decades without any major issues. It enables the elimination of coal pollution which has had tremendously bad effects upon air, water, and ground pollution worldwide. It shortens the lives of hundreds of millions of people every year. Natural gas directly replaces coal use, which makes it the friend of all but the most strident and uninformed environmentalists. It works very well to support solar, wind, and other forms of energy. No energy production, especially on of such great scale, can be without environmental impact but natural gas comes closest IMHO.

No need for name calling. I'll admit, I was one of the people that had a lot of reservations about fracking. That's slowly turned into excitement over the vast quantities of natural gas under our feet, enough to power almost everything, for a long, long time.

I hope k fry is right, and that my fears are unfounded, but if CO2 truly becomes an enemy of the country, I can't see how natural gas can remain a viable option.

When a better technology comes along, I will be happy to adopt it. That is only logical. Solar, wind, hydro, geothermal are all great, just not able to meet base needs unless you can convince everyone to live a minimalist lifestyle. Natural gas actually greatly lowers CO2 emissions by eliminating coal burning. This has been proven by the USA far surpassing the CO2 reductions of the European experiment. Europe pays three times as much for energy as we do because of it. They are now adopting fracking and horizontal drilling. As you know, all life ends up as natural gas and worldwide emissions of methane are so great as to be inestimable. For that reason it is impossible to figure how much mankind contributes.

Thanks for bringing up the subject of the EPA. Obama is going along with natural gas, and his administration has made some minimal support to CNG vehicle research. Republicans stopped the natural gas act, because of large contributions by the Koch brothers. I am a Republican, but think that all promising technologies should get fair and equal funding, if any is given at all. Natural gas now has some minimal tax benefits too.

Agenda 21 should be watched also. It may have noble intentions, but noble intentions often turn into disastrous results. It could also be a wolf in sheeps clothing.

I live a pretty minimalist lifestyle now, and I would love to be able to completely cut my ties to the grid.

I think the biggest obstacle standing in the way of big time solar and wind, is storage. I also think that it's a challenge that will be overcome with time. Natural gas, as far as I can tell, is the perfect bridge. I sincerely hope that we don't vilify it to the point that we can't use it.

Darn! Just one more link, and I promise I'll stop.

This is a copy of the DHS Environmental Justice Strategy:

http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/mgmt/dhs-environmental-justice-strategy.pdf

It may be boring, but it sure does show that truth is stranger than fiction. From the document:

Communication on initiatives related to environmental justice will implement the DHS Guidance to Federal Financial Assistance Recipients Regarding Title VI Prohibition Against National Origin Discrimination Affecting Limited English Proficient Persons (http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/laws/gc_1277242893223.shtm, along with multi-lingual summaries), and with the Department's forthcoming language access plan.

Again, you are fear mongering, and showing that you have not given any real thought to the documents you link to. You are imagining draconian consequences resulting from the most innocuous policy statements.

The DHS (and most governmental agencies) are becoming concerned about environmental justice. This term, "environmental justice" refers to taking into account the needs of poor people, who often have not, and do not, have benefit of the environmental practices many of us take for granted. Many of us can afford filtered water if the stuff coming out of our taps tastes like gasoline. Many poor people cannot.

Visit migrant worker camps just an hour east of where you live. I've been there. The conditions can be awful. The workers work long hard hours, and put up with stuff ordinary Americans do not have to put up with, because they are desperate to put food on the table. Good septic systems, warm showers... surely you jest.

In many industrial facilities in North Carolina, you can find migrant workers painting large machines, crawling all over them, while they continue to run. Obvious OSHA violations... but if someone dies, there is no one around with the money and connections to sue. Very low risk to the company.

If you got your news from reliable sources instead of self-proclaimed zealots like Loudon, you would realize that "environmental justice" was in the news thousands of times in the days of Hurricane Katrina. Poor people were dramatically and disproportionately affected by Katrina. That is very often the case in disasters, whether they are caused by terrorist activities or by natural forces. Loose your $2,000,000 vacation house and it's of no consequence: insurance enables you to build a new one. Loose your $20,000 fisherman's shack, and it can be a huge deal, if you were unable to afford flood insurance. You lose it all.

This document is only about what many of us consider to be common human decency: doing to others as we would have them do to us. The "bad part" is only in your imagination.

Only in your perverse conspiracy-theory-world-view is this document or any others you have linked to about using DHS to spy on farmers (or whatever "truth is stranger than fiction" scenario you imagine) or to have DHS monitor CO2 levels. The part you quoted is in recognition of the fact that people who do not speak English are a vital part of the American economy and enable farmers to make higher profits and consumers to pay lower food prices. It is unfair just to scream louder in English to these people during an emergency. The US is one of very few developed countries in which signage is in just one language.

Search the document you provided. CO2 never appears. Carbon never appears.

I'll try to spell it out better.

1) The DHS was formed in response to the events of 9-11-01, in which 3000 American citizens were slaughtered. Their specific mission was to bring together our existing dysfunctional agencies, and to streamline communications in an effort to thwart Islamic terrorism.

2) During that time, I heard a daily montage of presidential overreach, unconstitutional abuse of power, blood for oil, etc.

3) Today, the DHS is being reconfigured into the US enforcement arm in the war on global warming, or climate change, depending on the week.

4) Throughout the links I've provided, there is a commonality; it's that this new war is being fought, based upon the science and recommendations of the IPCC. The IPCC is part of the UN.

5) The UN is comprised of many member countries that have an open dislike for the US. Iran being the worst, and they are not afraid to express their wish that all Americans were dead, as well as wiping Israel off the map.

Yeah, this concerns me.

Now, if I was truly paranoid, I would bring up the amount of ammo that they are amassing. Even the left is taking notice..............but we won't go there.

http://www.naturalnews.com/035649_DHS_ammunition_domestic_war.html

I appreciate your attempt. It at least has some real statements instead of vague innuendo.

Re number 1.) This is not completely wrong, although, of course "Islamic" is not mentioned in the law. DHS influence is, and always has been, very broad, with, for example, the coast guard and FEMA always being within their oversight. So should there be a disasterous hurricane, DHS will become involved. Obviously, every disaster carries with it huge environmental issues. Do you fine the guy who pollutes a river with tons of toxic chemicals that were inadequately secured? Do you fine a farmer whose hog lagoons have inadequate berms and overflow and trash the Neuse? That's why coordination is necessary.

Re number 2.) Much of what you heard was less about DHS than the specifics of surveillance against American citizens, e.g. wiretapping of people with funny sounding names.

Re number 3.) This is where you begin really imagining things. In the US, there is no war on global warming or climate change. (And, of course the terms do not vary weekly, but they are very often used indiscriminately or vaguely. Global warming is the current problem, whereas ice ages fit under "climate change".) Other countries take global warming more seriously.

Re number 4.) There is very little commonality in the links you have provided. One group of links is about the namby pamby hope that environmental concerns will be considered across agencies. One is a completely different issue, about the environmental aspects of minimum basic housing standards for poor people. None of this will have any affect on Joe Suburbia. Another is a rehash of existing statutes regarding protecting people from unreasonable surveillance, and has nothing at all to do with the EPA. One has to do with FEMA and EPA being better coordinated, because FEMA runs into many environmental issues. (It makes little sense to have a home rebuilder trying to sort out competing interests of FEMA and EPA... better the agencies get their act together. Perhaps you have not been involved in disaster recovery, but is is very common to have unproductive turf wars between agency reps that distract from helping people rebuild.)

Continuing with number 4, you make incredible logical leaps re the influence of the IPCC. None of the various program links, fracking links, etc, etc, you supplied has anything to do with the IPCC. In most, you can't even find the words carbon or CO2 if you search. This connection is all in your imagination. You must live in dire fear all the time.

5. You've leaped to the UN, which has nothing to do with any of this. Yes the current regime in Iran does not like us. Many Iranian people, however, like us just fine, despite our past CIA meddling in their country. But yes, we do not want Iran to become powerful. Nor do we want North Korea to become more powerful. North Korea's tests were universally condemned by the UN, and having that cooperation can help when it comes time to level the place.

The UN has never acted in any meaningful sense against the US, and has helped us many times. Occasionally, talking things over in the UN has led to peaceful solutions to problems. The UN is, in many ways, inept and powerless, but they do some things well. Only the most imaginative conspiracy theorists think of it as powerful organization bent on dominating the US -- they have never come close to doing anything of the sort.

You cap this off with:

Now, if I was truly paranoid, I would bring up the amount of ammo that they are amassing.

And, of course you did bring it up...

The amount of ammo ordered by various agencies has shown up on Snope and other hoax debunk sites, of course.

It's an engineering site, and also a place for discussion and debate.

You may get cranky, but I don't think you would deny your love for debate. I've read too many of your posts over the years. I got you hook, line and sinker with this one.

In regard to all of these documents related to utilizing the DHS in the climate change battle, I said they were shrouded in a bunch of "feel good" nonsense, and you said it was typical boring agency fluff; so we seem to agree there.

I can't figure out why they would use so much time and energy to create hundreds of pages that don't really say anything.

They open it up for 60 days of public comment, and there's nothing to comment on. In all of those pages, not once do they mention any specifics on exactly what they will be doing. So, either they are wasting time and tax dollars, creating mountains of paper that say that there will be cross agency cooperation, or they are leaving out the specifics intentionally.

Sure I sensationalized the thread a little. How else am I gonna get people to read boring government fluff?

The larger point is, that I want people to become engaged in what our government is doing, regardless of political persuasion.

This is going to turn out in one of two ways:

It's either going to be another load of kramarat, chicken little BS, and be the benevolent work of a kind and loving government that only wants to keep us safe...

or, it will be another tool of government encroachment that has a negative impact on our lives and work; in which case, those in the field of engineering and manufacturing will be definitely feeling it.

Time will tell. We have plenty of members that work in engineering and industry; maybe they would be willing to bookmark this thread and let us know.

Furthermore, I never seem to see any outcry when people launch into attacking Walmart, Wall St, big banks, etc. on here. I see no reason for anyone to take it as a personal affront when the motives of big government are brought into question.

On a final note, as far as the big corporations and both parties in Washington are concerned, I've reached the conclusion that they are all on the same team. In fact, I would like to see a law passed that requires our elected representaves to wear sponsorship patches on their jackets, much like we see on the race car drivers. At least we would know who they are serving.

They all seem to enjoy having us working slobs confused and at each other's throats.

You and I are playing our roles perfectly.

Climate change will probably be the least of our worries anyway....

From the director of the CBO:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTACQCLesVo&list=UU0NDAIG6R5qbWOm0-NNo7Ag&feature=player_embedded#!

It may be a little late to enter into the fray but I happened to come across a link to this topic that might be of interest to anyone willing to read it. In essence it is a report how the government and industry have worked to make fracking less of an environmental problem by working out the issues together. Happy reading.

http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/oil-gas/publications/EPact/08122-35-final-report.pdf

I just finished reading the EPA document, I'll skip the USDA's since it's probably more of the same.

I did not read anything to indicate there is an eminent onslaught of regulation to be afraid of, anymore than is usual for regulatory agencies. It can be summed up by saying "agency policies will now take climate change into consideration." It's actually a pretty good lesson on what the EPA thinks of its core mission. Its regulatory authority is conferred by laws written by congress in accordance (supposedly) with the constitution, not by agency policy statements.

My guess is that all US executive branch agencies (EPA, DHS, USDA,...) have something similar in the works and they're all plagiarizing each other. Stating that they are working together "to the extent possible" is more likely political correctness and a dash of convenience more than some vast conspiracy.

Your alarmist OP title and initial statements show a severe anti-EPA bias and, IMO are not warranted by the linked document. It is just hyperbole on your part. While you are probably correct in thinking there will be more regulations, and that they will affect more people, that would have been the case regardless as the body of knowledge, the economy, and human population, etc. expand. However, thanks for pointing to the draft documents "open for public comment". Maybe some CR4 members will comment to the respective agencies to affect positive change.

That's kind of the point. They will be implementing what amounts to a war on CO2, but there is nothing in the documentation that says what they plan on doing; therefore, it makes it rather difficult for the public to give any meaningful response.

I was reading through the TreeHugger link last night, and there is link within that says that this will unlikely amount to much of anything, due to the difficulty and logististics of enforcement. There is also speculation over there, that this is simply the easiest way to push through nationalized, mandated cap and trade; which makes sense.

I guess we'll find out after it's all implemented, which should be by the end of this year.

About a year ago the Obama adiministration directed all agencies overseeing fracking to work together to expedite any paperwork possible. I don't know how that has worked out, but there is more than enough gas for now. It is so cheap that they can barely afford to produce it. It costs about .18 , per energy unit, compared to an average barrel of oil. That is today, and the cold season is almost over.

http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/when-is-a-barrel-not-a-barrel-devon-energy-corporation-dvn-apache-corporation-apa-64702/?singlepage=1

I've heard that it's become so cheap on the market, that the companies are having a hard time coming up with the money to pay off their equipment loans.

I wish I could get hooked up, propane is still fairly high.

I am afraid that the big dogs will start buying out the little dogs and competition will suffer greatly. Oil was once in the same situation in Texas. The Governor had the Texas Railroad Commission set the price and quotas on how much could be produced. The Texas National Guard was put in charge of enforcing the monopoly. If it happens with natural gas , it will have to be a lot more circuitous.

I've been in the environmental field for over 16 years in 6 states covering industrial, construction, and mining I've never seen enforcement by the EPA. Its always state and local because they are the most restrictive. Very rarely do I need to apply for anything from them. Most states know these regulations are to weak to do anything so they modify them. So I would not worry about these regulations affecting anything any time soon. Most states have the option to modify the feds so this process takes years to happen.

I'd have to agree. Very few rules and regulations that come out of Washington are actually ever enforced, with the exception of the IRS.

It never hurts to keep an eye on what they're up to though. We wouldn't want to be blindsided by something we never saw coming.

With my job I have to hire a consulting team just to keep up with all the changes coming through at the state and local levels. The feds I usually see them coming years ahead.

It can be a real pain.

Last year I applied for a permit to make what amounted to little signs, out of my home. I was turned down by the county, because I would have had several cans of spray paint on my premises, which was determined to be a toxic environmental hazard.

It took several months, but I ended up going to the state dept of commerce, a few phone calls later, I got my permit and business license. Not all of my paranoia is unfounded.

I am sure that a lot of regulations are necessary and valuable, if enforced properly. What percentage of regulations could be simplified or eliminated without harming the environment? Do you have any thought on that? I don't even know a fraction of all the laws that regulate me as a citizen, and doubt that many do. A lawyer at my church recently told a class that he, jokingly, tells his clients that they could pay him to follow them around all day.

I am for common sense laws that are strictly enforced. It doesn't matter if it is border security, criminal law, corporate laws, or environmental laws.

We should write laws with real teeth, and when people get busted breaking them, the penalties should be severe enough that others would be foolish to try the same thing. But the laws also would have to be reasonable.

The fact that we have hundreds of thousands of unenforced laws, is a big part of the reason that people think nothing of breaking them. Of course, I also am one of those old fashioned people that believe in hard labor for convicted felons, and living conditions that are no better than what we subject our soldiers to.

My job is to basically run interference between the agencies and the company I work for which does heavy construction like road building and mining. I know for a fact if let to their own it would be pretty.

You mean "not" be pretty?

I'm under no illusion that corporate America would do the right thing, if left to their own devices. I also get in arguments "for" government, when I hear libertarians suggest that we would be fine without it. Talk about a mess.

Correct it would not be pretty. I deal a lot with the good ol boys who got away with all sorts of things. I work alot on their hunting heritage or would they leave it like that in there backyard if those don't work the threat of fines but that only works in certain states like CA. Most red states like AZ there are very little oversight.

What percentage of regulations could be simplified or eliminated without harming the environment? Do you have any thought on that?

I have thoughts on that. I have read every word in the most of following statutes over the years: Part 121 FAA (regarding the operation of airliners), FAA Part 91 (general aviation), MSHA (mainly as regards operations in underground mines), OSHA (all the industry standards and some of the construction standards), EPA regarding vehicle and other emissions and virtually all industrial matters regarding waste water disposal, VOC emissions, etc... in other words all the stuff you have to know to operate a typical largish industrial plant of about 1/4 mile across.

I have found next to nothing that is not common sense... but spelled out in infinite detail to make it enforceable. So I have not seen a single regulation that could be eliminated, and the legal system makes it nearly impossibly to simplify them.

Although there have been "plain English" movements, this stuff is very apt to be written in legalese, because it must have the force of law. Anyone who has patented something understands that very slight changes in wording can have dramatic effects on the legalities.

Modern, highly regarded, "world's biggest" corporations generally treat risk analysis purely financially. Most know, through their risk management departments, whether it is more cost-effective to kill a small number of people or to institute a more effective safety program. In the rubber industry, for example, it is not uncommon to have people sucked into mills that reduce rubber from large globs into 1/2 inch thick slabs. These events are gruesome and costly, yet completely preventable with adequate engineering controls. How do these accidents effect employee morale and reduce productivity? How much do they cost in lawsuits? Will people hear about it and stop buying our products? How much will media damage control cost? Etc., etc. With a cost/benefit analysis, they decide whether or not to comply with intent of law (or with what many would think of as common sense protections) or to skirt the law.

As a result, major corporations are caught all the time violating the most obvious environmental and safety standards.

As CEO, do you reduce profits slightly to go slightly beyond the purely rational monetary analysis regarding the cost of a life lost... or do you face shareholder suits for going too far in that direction? The SEC says you must act with fiduciary responsibility to maximize returns for shareholders.

The Chinese companies are better than most US companies at giving a low value to human life in these risk analyses. Companies like Apple, whose products are made mainly in China, gain the benefit of using this cheap cost-per-life evaluation, while, through huge media buys, making people think they are "nice". The best of both worlds.

If we think of the US companies (and culture) as being "about right", and China as being under-regulated, then many European companies (and culture) are overly cautious with human life, and more respectful of workers family lives, with much longer vacations, universal health care, etc.

It's all a balancing act. But the short answer: I have seen virtually every EPA standard being violated in one industrial location or another (and in numerous mom-and-pop car repair shops, junk yards, etc.) If anything, there needs to be more stuff spelled out, not less... or we can go back to the days when I bathed in asbestos dust and rivers burst into flames.

It's funny that you keep bringing up asbestos.

I used to get covered up in it back in the Navy while ripping out and replacing insulation in the engine room. They didn't even have particle masks. That was back in 81-82.

I can also give you, (what I think), is regulatory over kill. Today it is illegal to use asbestos anywhere, including the braided material for industrial use. Nothing else works quite as good, and I would imagine that some kind of treatment must exist to keep it from getting airborn.

I can probably find about a dozen products in our shops that have asbestos. It hasn't been outlawed but like you said regulated heavily. Also asbestosis doesn't hit for about 40 years so you still have a couple of years to go. ; )

It's funny that you keep bringing up asbestos.

Funny is not the word I would chose; I hope you mean "odd" or "coincidental".

My father-in-law died of meso when he was my current age. I have not routinely checked for asbestos problems but have had two Xrays: one a while back; one in 2010. The 2010 one, in which scarring and nodules were found, was followed 3D scans, etc.

Were it not for Obamacare, I'd be unable to get insurance if mine lapsed.

My exposure was in 1967 or 1968, and did not show up until about 40 years later. You are probably good until 2020 -- or you may not get caught.

Sad that even though we knew the hazards, we exposed our military (especially the Navy) to the risks. If the enemy doesn't get you, our own country will.

The risks were known in Roman times, and became painfully obvious in the 1930's:

• In 1930, the major asbestos company Johns-Manville produced a report, for internal company use only, about medical reports of asbestos worker fatalities.^[75] In 1932, a letter from U.S. Bureau of Mines to asbestos manufacturer Eagle-Picher stated, in relevant part, "It is now known that asbestos dust is one of the most dangerous dusts to which man is exposed."^[76]
• In 1933, Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. doctors found that 29% of workers in a Johns-Manville plant had asbestosis.^[75] Likewise, in 1933, Johns-Manville officials settled lawsuits by 11 employees with asbestosis on the condition that the employees' lawyer agree to never again "directly or indirectly participate in the bringing of new actions against the Corporation."^[76] In 1934, officials of two large asbestos companies, Johns-Manville and Raybestos-Manhattan, edited an article about the diseases of asbestos workers written by a Metropolitan Life Insurance Company doctor. The changes downplayed the danger of asbestos dust.^[76] In 1935, officials of Johns-Manville and Raybestos-Manhattan instructed the editor of Asbestos magazine to publish nothing about asbestosis.^[76] In 1936, a group of asbestos companies agreed to sponsor research on the health effects of asbestos dust, but required that the companies maintain complete control over the disclosure of the results.^[75]

I can also give you, (what I think), is regulatory over kill. Today it is illegal to use asbestos anywhere, including the braided material for industrial use.

Just when I think you've returned to awareness, you come up with this. The notion that asbestos is illegal (in the US) for all uses can only come from sources like Fox News, whose mission it is to misinform. Asbestos is legal for use in the US in numerous products. Here is the EPA site. Here is a meso site which lists common products in which it can be used.

The allowed products are things like:

• Asbestos-cement corrugated sheet
• Asbestos-cement flat sheet
• Asbestos clothing
• Pipeline wrap
• Roofing felt
• Vinyl-asbestos floor tile
• Asbestos-cement shingle
• Millboard
• Asbestos-cement pipe
• Automatic transmission components
• Clutch facings
• Friction materials
• Disc brake pads
• Drum brake linings
• Brake blocks
• Gaskets
• Non-roofing coatings
• Roof coatings

The not-allowed stuff: flooring felt, rollboard, and corrugated, commercial, or specialty paper, and new uses. (This is the entire list from 40 CFR part 763.165.)
Given that virtually every other developed nation bans asbestos entirely (although Canada exports mined asbestos to India), I think the EPA rules are anything but "regulatory overkill". The rest of the developed world gets along without it just fine.

Well, I'm probably toast anyway.

Exposure in the Navy was pretty regular. I also got hit pretty hard while restoring an old church. We were wearing particle masks while ripping cracks for patching in the cathedral ceiling, and about 2 days into it, my entire crew, (including me), got sick as dogs, with respiratory problems. It was like the flu, but worse.

The millionaire owner of my company came and checked it out, after I had pointed out the problem, and told me to carry on.

Back when I was running crews, I would never have put any of them at unnecessary risk; so on my own, I shut the job down, (without permission), and paid out of my own pocket to get the ceiling material analyzed. Sure enough....asbestos, along with some other bad stuff.

I basically told my boss to go screw himself, and negotiated a compromise with the preacher of the church. No more removal of any sort, and that we would just fill the remaining cracks with caulking. It didn't look perfect in the end, but it was good enough, considering the alternative.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find consumer products that contain asbestos, including brakes; and that's just fine with me. In other cases, asbestos is simply the best material for the job, and it should be treated with the respect that it deserves.

Wow!!!

To this day, I never knew exactly what happened to my crew and me. I still can't be positive, but these symptoms match up almost to a tee.

Shortness of breath, high fever, cough, clammy skin.......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis

On a happier note, just last night, my wife and I signed the papers on a pretty nice life insurance policy. If I follow the death trend, she'll be okay financially, which is nice to know.

You wrote: I think you'd be hard pressed to find consumer products that contain asbestos, including brakes;

Flat lie. Again.

California and Washington have the strongest laws but they are very lenient, with existing stocks allowed to be sold for ten years, and with manufacturing not to stop now but in 2015. The EPA laws are, of course, laughably lenient in comparisons to those in the rest of the developed world.

Would you freaking relax!!!!

I said I THINK. The way I constructed the sentence, makes it impossible to be a lie.

You are correct, and I was surprised. While the major US manufacturers have pretty much eliminated asbestos from new cars, the aftermarket brake pads still contain it.

I think a pretty good rule of thumb, is that if it's not air, inhaling it can be bad for your health. This would apply to asbestos, fiberglass, gasoline, and pretty much everything else that isn't air.

My brother in law told me a story about how her replaced a boiler in one of his apartment buildings. He decided to remove the asbestos himself to save some money, and vacuumed and bagged it. He told me about how the fire department inspected it, and were mad at him, because they suspected he had done the job himself but couldn't prove it. He thought he had gotten over on them. He eventually got sick, and died after a long and terrible illness on and off a respirator. He had mesothelioma. He was a wonderful guy, and we all miss him greatly.

I worry about guys I used to work with that sprayed furniture with silicon spray, called Scotchguard, and wouldn't wear their masks. Also about the guys who fixed brakes and blew them out with the air hose. They didn't even have masks.

I see it all the time.

One of the saddest sights I see on a regular basis, is passing some construction site, and seeing some kid dumping bags of concrete into a portable mixer, surrounded by gray dust. You know he's doing it every day. I used to stop and warn them, but it's no use.

Sorry about your brother in law. My day will probably come, with something similar. Hopefully it's quick.

If he got nailed by one exposure, I'm doomed.

The feds I usually see them coming years ahead.

Exactly right. In my current micro business in the "heavily regulated" vehicle business, keeping up with the NHTSA and EPA requirements is easy... even when there is no one tasked with the responsibility other than the guy who also cleans the toilets and writes the checks.

In my old consulting life, all the FAA, MSHA, OSHA and EPA regs were simple to meet and anticipate. Often the regs are slightly behind the average state-of-the-art in companies that really care about doing the right thing in self-interest, let alone for the public good. Lawmakers are not imaginative enough to devise anything new.

The FAA 8 hour bottle-to-throttle reg is an example. Most airlines would not let a pilot fly drunk out of self-preservation alone -- no reg needed for airlines who can think a little about self-interest. Crashes do not make people more likely to want to fly. The reg results when there is a need slow down the most egregious negligence.

Once the Cuyahoga river started to burst into flames, many people started to think "maybe we need to regulate this stuff that should be obvious." You have to get way over to the Kramarat end of the political spectrum to think that is is OK to take a dump in your neighbor's back yard.

These standards never get implemented at the fed level unless they are very easy for industry to meet, with plenty of ramp-up time. That's what lobbyists are for. The Haliburton loophole, for example, is designed not to impede industry but to help it. It is OK to inject toxic chemicals into the ground for fracking (but not ok for other industries)... you just have to get a permit.

You must have been typing as I was posting.

Are you getting bored now that the flames are dying down?

I'm pretty sure I never promoted polluting, on any level.

I basically don't think that a blind trust in federal government is healthy, and I also don't think that the UN should be influencing or dictating US law.

Was Al Gore's Dad doing the right thing for America, as he was voting against the Civil Rights Act?

I think not.

Government works for us, we need to make sure it stays that way.

While it may be called "fear mongering", we should never underestimate the power behind executive orders and and a well intentioned government.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment

Has anyone else caught the irony of me being called a fear monger on this thread?

When I'm feeling particularly gloomy, I've got two choices for reading material: The arguments of Al Gore and his AGW ilk, or the book of Revelation from the Bible. They are one and the same. I suspect that it's intentional.

Had the Bible been copyrighted, Al Gore would be losing a plagiarism suit.

Just a little food for thought.

friends,

I read the entire EPA document linked at the beginning and read over the linked Air Force document also. I'm glad to see the EPA working to include the possible effects of climate change (note--wording is not "global warming") in how it conducts its business. The only portion of the Air Force document that really bothered me was the portion that prohibited disclosure of the photos they took, except for certain circumstances. I think it should have required the disclosure of all photos they took (such as for training, etc.) except where the particular photos were known to contain images of secure facilities. There is a tendency towards government secrecy at all levels and for all materials. There should be instead a tendency towards disclosure.

Regarding the IPCC, the UN, climate change, the scientific method, and other topics some would like to conflate together, I was trained as a scientist in a family of scientists. I learned from an early age to ask questions, to look for errors and assumptions. I find little in the reports and literature I have read to deny the reality of changes at an increasing rate in our climate. Much of it tends towards warming, but all of it towards increased variability and increased severity of events (drought, rain, wind, etc.). We need to be looking at these and NOT assume a constant or steady-state environment. Good science will watch for this.

Good review and criticism of reports (whether good or bad) will look at the questions being asked, the variables, the things assumed to be constant, the methods of analysis, and so on. These reports will then point these out and suggest how they can invalidate the study or report, or how these sources of error can be minimized in a revised report or further research. A good example of this is the problem with interpreting Antarctic ice core data about global temperature and atmospheric CO₂. It is true that in these data the best analysis shows the CO₂ levels rising/falling a number of decades after the temperature rose or fell. The raw data do not include enough information about other environmental impacts on the climate in those prehistoric times (such as atmospheric turbidity, levels of CH₄, fires, ocean water pH, etc.). Therefore, a poor conclusion from these data would be to say that rising CO₂ cannot be an influence toward higher temperature today.

Conspiracies, and so on? Oh, yes, they exist. Many have been created and practiced by large companies and industries, in addition to those of governments.

--John M.

I guess I'm having trouble with the big picture.

For example; I can't comprehend how a government that is happy to bring us over the $20 trillion mark, in debt, can have any genuine concern over a possible 1 degree difference in temperature.

Some other questions that I'd like answered:

If our government is so concerned about climate change......

1) Why are we exporting record amounts of coal to China? This not only creates CO2 from burning it, but it adds more CO2 by transporting it.

http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=8490

2) Why is the Energy Department predicting record levels of US oil production in the coming years?

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/10/23/1076951/us-poised-to-be-worlds-top-oil-producer-part-of-the-new-middle-east-the-bad-news-well-also-have-their-climate/?mobile=nc

3) Why was the US government subsidising US natural gas and petroleum as late as 2010?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/23/fracking-developed-government_n_1907178.html

4) Why is the president pushing cap and trade? This is something I really don't understand....Why not just cap output, rather than creating a market that sucks hundreds of billions of dollars out of the private sector?

The answers are obvious to anyone paying attention. (BTW - I did not read the links, no time, but my answer does not depend on them I hope)

First, there is no happiness in government currently, unless they are completely mad. Which is definitely a possibility. But none of them look happy to me, again except for a few local and state pols who I think are really crazy.

Second, all the "whys" can be boiled down to the US' government of the corporations, by the corporations underlying philosophy of allowing markets to work. In each of your 3 questions the answer is "because large corporations make large amounts of money, which generated large amounts of campaign contributions and the objections are not serious enough to keep them from getting elected".

As for #4, The answer is similar. Just mandating a cap that strikes all segments of the economy, like CAFE for autos, is not politically or practically workable. However, creating a market at least lets someone get rich from it.

If our government is so concerned about climate change......

It is not.

Given that the US is not interested in changing the course of climate change, then the answers are (one would hope) obvious.

1. We export coal to so that US companies make money, and we reduce the trade deficit, delaying the time when China owns the US completely.

2. The US is a capitalistic country.

3. Because Big Fuel likes the subsidies and have the lobbyists to buy them.

4. There is money to be made in trades. Capping output alone would put some power plants out of business.

We're agreeing.

All but #4. There is a limit to how much CO2 emissions can be capped, and as the president has mentioned, implementing the technology will be passed on to the consumers, making everything more expensive.

Sure there's money to be made in cap and trade; trillions, if it's instituted globally. But it will do nothing to curb total carbon emissions.

As far as the government prioritizing climate change across all federal departments; I'd say that we are either looking at a case of schizophrenia, or something more sinister...like control.

At least I'm not alone.

From wiki:

Climate change

On July 29, 2009, Burt Rutan drew a full house for his presentation at the Experimental Aircraft Association's EAA Airventure 2009 Oshkosh Conference entitled "Non-Aerospace Research Quests of a Designer/Flight Test Engineer" where he discussed his thoughts on his hobby of climate change.,^[46] He then updated and extended his Oshkosh presentations in 2010 and 2011.^[47][48] Rutan gave an updated extended presentation on global warming on WUWT.TV in November 2012.,,^[49][50][51]

While admitting in his presentation that he was not a climate scientist, Rutan stated he spent most of his career on data analysis and interpretation and how it is used or misused.

"I put myself in the (Those who fear expansion of Government control) group, and do not hide the fact that I have a clear bias on [ Anthropogenic global warming (AGW)]. My bias is based on fear of Government expansion and the observation of AGW data presentation fraud - not based on financial or any other personal benefit. I merely have found that the closer you look at the data and alarmists' presentations, the more fraud you find and the less you think there is an AGW problem... For decades, as a professional experimental test engineer, I have analyzed experimental data and watched others massage and present data. I became a cynic; My conclusion - "if someone is aggressively selling a technical product whose merits are dependent on complex experimental data, he is likely lying". That is true whether the product is an airplane or a Carbon Credit."

He describes his interest on the climate change topic as deriving from his "interest in technology, not tree hugging". Burt Rutan's house was featured in a November 1, 1989 article in Popular Science entitled: "21st Century Pyramid: The Ultimate Energy-efficient House".^[52]

Rutan will also not interview with Scientific American, as he claimed that the magazine has "...improperly covered man-made global warming. They drink Kool-Aid instead of doing research. They parrot stuff from the IPCC and Al Gore."^[53]