JONATHAN CHAIT FEBRUARY 4, 2011
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Charles Krauthammer on E.P.A. regulation of carbon emissions:
I think it shows how ideologically determined the Obama administration is even after being chastised heavily in the midterm election about overreaching. It’s trying to reach around Congress, around the will of the people — and Congress when it rejected cap-and-trade — essentially imposing the carbon tax on the country which doesn’t want it, but it’s going to try to do it by regulation.
On what basis does Krauthammer assert that the people don't want the E.P.A. to regulate carbon emissions? There's not much polling on this, but the polling I've seen shows strong support for regulation.
Now, it's true that support for carbon taxes in weaker. (It's also true that Krauthammer at least used to support such a tax.) So you could say that if the public understood the issue better, they'd realize carbon regulation is an effective tax, and oppose it. But 'd also say that if the public understood the issue better they'd support a carbon tax. It's not an issue where the public has a strong grasp of the details. If you want to deal with public opinion as it exists, the evidence suggests people support the administration's regulatory agenda on the environment.
8 comments
Last year you referred to Charles Krauthammer as increasingly nutty. That is very true. He also is increasingly a partisan hack. He never writes columns any more like he did occasionally in the 1990s; in the mid-1990s when conservatives were hot to amend the Constitution to prohibit flag-burning, K. denounced this effort in a wonderful column that I clipped out and have around here somewhere. He said that if this is conservatism, liberalism deserves a comeback.
- liberalref
February 4, 2011 at 12:38pm
I suppose that Krauthammer also forget that it is the Clean Air Act that authorizes regulation of carbon dioxide as a pollutant? Litigated & decided by the Supreme Court back in 2005 (?). Unless and until Congress can exempt CO2 from EPA jurisdiction (as happened in the past with nicotine & the FDA) the controlling "will of the people" says EPA has such an authority. I am not sure why relying upon a decades old landmark piece of legislation (from that hotbed of liberal govt overeach, the Nixon administration) is subverting the will of the people. The various carbon regulation proposals represented a departure from the status quo baseline of EPA regulation, not a status quo baseline of no carbon regulations. I don't think it is crazy to suggest that the failsafe of EPA regulation may have helped to doom the bill b/c many Dems could avoid taking a vote on carbon regulation while feeling assured the EPA would handle it. Yes, this is a serious problem with the modern administrative system, but that is not specific to this issue and that is not Krauthammer's point. Though I wish he would write a serious piece on this topic, as it would be beneficial for smart people to focus on issues that actually are troubling, rather than trump up faux outrage to advance a particular policy agenda.
- markentel
February 4, 2011 at 1:12pm
Remember when popular opinion turned against the Iraq war? And W surged instead of retreated? Did K criticize W for ignoring public opinion? When Congress turned in 2006, did K say that W should abandon his agenda and let Pelosi and Reid take over? For that matter, how many times did W say he governed according to his sense of right and wrong (unfortunately, determined by his gut instead of his brain), rather than polls? Even St. Ronnie did things in contravention of opinion polls - which, as Brendan Nyhan points out in a recent post, actually turned against St. Ron's agenda early in his first term and basically showed increasing support for government programs over the next seven years. That said, I'm going to round up some opinion polls to send to K showing that the public is against just about everything he believes, as most polls do. Since he's a paragon of consistency and virtue, I'm sure he'll start agitating for higher taxes, withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq, increased spending on SS and Medicare, and on education, energy efficiency and care for veterans.
- Geoff G
February 4, 2011 at 1:15pm
No he won't, Geoff.
- liberalref
February 4, 2011 at 2:17pm
Chait - you cite one left-wing polling outfit as evidence (lead guy was Obama's pollster). The questions don't even talk about any tax or cost to citizens. You are just a pudgy moonbat cheerleader aren't you. I was hoping for more. Search for truth -- look for dis-confirming data not just the propoganda submitted to you
- mr_rationale
February 4, 2011 at 2:45pm
The poorly written Heritage program continues to have bugs. A question mark doesn't even appear at the end of an interrogative. That is pretty basic. Also, this program has not been told that J, Chait marches to his own drummer and is not a cheerleader for anything. Lastly, the program is totally unaware that the problem with moonbattery is on the right, not the left.
- liberalref
February 4, 2011 at 3:06pm
Mr_rationale. I followed the link and it's what Chait says it is. And athough the pollsters are employed by Obama, it is for the purpose of advising him on public attitudes. It would be highly ineffective for them to provide bad data and there is no reason to expect it to be unreliable information.
- Nusholtz
February 4, 2011 at 6:47pm
Like most conservatives, rationale is surprised and disturbed when a Democratic president wants actual reliable data to inform his decisions.
- ironyroad
February 4, 2011 at 11:28pm