You have to be amazed that at a time when the scientific consensus on global warming is at it weakest, that is when President Obama decided to announce his new climate agenda. Wiping his brow while speaking at Georgetown University in the late-June heat, the president put forth a climate action plan.

Various climate models predicted that global warming would be accelerating right now. That is not what is happening. The warmest year on record was 1998, and there has been significanty less warming in the last 15 years.

The president is directing the EPA to take over large segments of the American economy. His plan covers everything from power plant emission controls to fuel mileage rules for heavy trucks to efficiency standards for home appliances. The most significant are rules that will adversely affect coal-fired power plants.

The president believes that now is the time to act and has no patience for those who question whether there is a firm consensus concerning anthropogenic
(human-induced) global warming. Even if we assume that global warming is a major threat, the policies that the president proposes do not necessarily follow. Limits on greenhouse gases in the U.S. will have no effect on a world that includes China, India, and other nations manufacturing products and driving cars.

One climatologist used an extreme example to prove the point. Even if the U.S. achieved a 50% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, the net impact would be a reduction in global average temperature of 7 hundredths of 1 degree Celsius.

We should also mention that there is a cost to EPA regulations. Some estimate that for every $1 billion spent complying with an EPA rule, there is a subsequent loss of 16,000 jobs and a cut in GDP of $1.2 million.

We don’t need more EPA rules limiting manufacturing, power production, and transportation at a time when millions of Americans are already out of work and wages have fallen for the last five years.