Written By : Dave Blount

With the insane ruling that the harmless carbon dioxide humans generate with every activity is a pollutant and therefore subject to control by the leftists running the EPA, the Supreme Court has brought us to the edge of a totalitarianism unprecedented in human history. If the EPA is given time to implement the authority it has already been granted, there is absolutely nothing it cannot proscribe, literally including breathing. Fortunately, alarmed by the rising tide of public outrage against Obama’s radical agenda, even some Democrats are pulling back from the abyss.

The Obama Administration has been moving full-speed ahead on anticarbon regulation, never mind waiting for Congress to pass a bill. But now opposition is building among senior Democrats, with two powerful committee Chairmen introducing a bill last week to bar the Environmental Protection Agency from declaring that carbon is a dangerous pollutant.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is busy writing new rules that would let her drive a tax-and-regulation bulldozer through the U.S. economy under laws never meant to apply to greenhouse gases. Ms. Jackson is expected to issue new anticarbon regulations for cars and trucks next month before moving on to power plants and other industries.

This is all too much for Missouri’s Ike Skelton and Minnesota’s Collin Peterson, the Chairmen of the House Armed Services and Agriculture Committees, respectively. Along with Missouri Republican Jo Ann Emerson, they are pushing a two-page bill that would amend the Clean Air Act to restore Congress’s original intent and strip CO2 and other greenhouse gases from the statutory language.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. With Obama’s encouragement, the EPA is poised to attach itself to every aspect of our lives like a Facehugger from the movie Alien. Liberty wouldn’t be the only casualty; the primary objective is to impose an economic depression, recreating the Democrat heyday of the 1930s.

But despite Hopey Change, some want this to remain a democracy, not an oligarchy run by shadowy watermelons in Priuses.

“If Congress doesn’t do something soon, the EPA is going to cram these regulations through all on their own,” Mr. Peterson said. “I have no confidence that EPA can regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act without severe harm to all taxpayers.”

Added Mr. Skelton: “Simply put, we cannot tolerate turning over the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions to unelected bureaucrats at EPA. America’s energy and environmental policies should be set by Congress.”

Maybe some relatively moderate Dems who disgraced themselves by climbing into bed with the Marxist in the White House will use this issue to redeem themselves.

The Skelton-Peterson-Emerson bill follows a similar effort by North Dakota Democrat Earl Pomeroy, not to mention Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski’s coming “disapproval resolution” in the Senate that has the support of Democrats Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln.

Or maybe, being Democrats, they can only be right by accident.

Skelton and Peterson are doing the right thing for the wrong reason — specifically, to defend the ethanol industry. Their bill includes provisions that would expand the definition of renewable fuels and make it easier for corn ethanol and soy biodiesel to qualify for federal tax credits. This is despite the growing shelf of studies that common crop-based fuels increase carbon emissions because of land-use changes and deforestation.

The ethanol boondoggle is a colossal waste of taxpayer money, but as the WSJ notes,

If the power of farm-state politicians ends up stopping the EPA’s global-warming power grab, it would be the first good thing ethanol has done for the country.

Before Big Government was allowed to metastasize out of control, the path forward was determined by what made economic sense, rather than by corrupt bureaucrats with zero interest in our well-being.

On a tip from Varla. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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