Motus Mentis

Say what you will about Barack Obama, the man is consistent: everything he does seems reliably to act against the interests of the United States, its people, and its economic and social well-being; against the intention of the Framers that we shall live under a government of limited, enumerated powers, in which the three branches of government acts as checks upon one another; and against his own sworn oath to defend the Constitution, and faithfully to execute the laws that Congress enacts.

Today we learn that, having failed a few years ago to persuade a Congressional Democratic supermajority to pass drastic limitations on carbon-dioxide emissions, he is simply going to do so on his own, through the Environmental Protection Agency. In other words, the EPA is now more powerful than Congress: what Congress lawfully denied, the EPA will now provide.

We should note also that what will be regulated, with profoundly harmful effect on energy costs, and by extension, entire industries and, as always, the lives and liberty of American citizens, is now being called carbon “pollution”, even though it is a harmless gas, a natural component of our atmosphere, and is utterly essential to human life.

Carbon dioxide constitutes only 0.04% of the Earth’s atmosphere. To give a commonly quoted analogy, if the atmosphere were a football stadium with 100,000 seats, only 40 of them would be taken up by carbon dioxide. Only a small percentage of that atmospheric concentration is put there by human activity — perhaps three or four percent of all atmospheric CO₂ — so out of those 100,000 seats, we are down to one seat. And that is the total for all human output, worldwide.

Now keep in mind that these regulations will only affect the United States, while China, India, and other developing nations will continue to burn as much coal as they like. Keep in in mind also that squeezing coal out of U.S. energy generation will reduce demand significantly, depressing the price of coal. But coal is still an extremely useful, portable, and relatively energy-dense power source, so all that will happen is that it will be exported and burned elsewhere, at lower prices. American coal producers, and their employees, will earn less, and most of the coal will go into the air anyway. As far as the greenhouse effect is concerned, the atmosphere doesn’t care where it gets burned.

Keep in mind also that a far more significant greenhouse gas is water vapor. Are we going to regulate that next?

In short, then: a fool’s errand, another burden and handicap for the nation’s economy, another arbitrary assault on American liberties, and another rebalancing of power in favor of this capricious and overweening Executive (and the subordinate behemoth sometimes called the “fourth branch”: the limitless, and almost completely unaccountable, Federal bureaucracy). If the Framers were alive today they would hardly recognize this failing nation as the Republic they risked all to create.

In other news, Mr. Obama has exchanged five senior Taliban prisoners for a U.S. deserter. The president was required by law to notify Congress before doing anything like this, but he didn’t bother. In doing this he not only violated the law (and thereby his oath, again) but has also, no doubt, encouraged future hostage-takers. Mullah Omar hailed the swap as a “great victory”.

People complain about the lavish vacations Mr. Obama takes, but I have to say I wish he’d take more of them. Indeed, if the nation could find the will, I think we could arrange for him to have a lot more free time, well before 2017 rolls around.