US repeals EPA endangerment finding for greenhouse gases | Hacker News Reader

US repeals EPA endangerment finding for greenhouse gases

cnn.com

164 pointsheresie-dabord103 comments

My first thought when seeing this was "OH! There must be new science." That does not seem to be the case. I'm going to need to adjust my understanding of how the world works.

I suspect that the "Champion of Beautiful, Clean Coal" is just living up to his side of the contract.[0]

[0] https://www.budget.senate.gov/chairman/newsroom/press/budget...

The argument that Congress should pass law to allow specific actions by the executive branch is quite reasonable.

If only it wasn't being cherry picked to neuter the EPA while Border Patrol and ICE take it upon themselves to act as police forces on domestic soil.

Yep. Toilet schedules for every department should go through Congress, apparently. It's a deliberate design to flood an already very narrow zone, lawmaking.

You can't have one party whose goal it to make sure government doesn't function in order to push their policy of 'shrink government' be in charge of making government function. No system will work when half the system is hostile to the system.

If the Republicans will happy spend money until we are all broke if it means we can limit the government's spending (huh? what? make that make sense) they will break it all (and are trying) in whatever way they can.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

I don't know. I lost all my trust to the democrats when the Biden government used a bulldozer to tear open the barbwire to allow people to enter our border freely, and his spokesperson told us the border was fine. At that moment, the democrats are like the Bush who started war by lying. I'd rather give republicans the benefit of the doubt and see them crush democrats for decades.

Yeah, there are a lot of people that believe in destroying the US/Constitution because things didn't go like they wanted at points. It's a 100% un-American position, but thanks for speaking up and showing Republicans do not give a f' about anything but their pet peeve issue and will burn it all down over it. You don't care Republicans are literally and intentionally bankrupting the nation with their recent big beautiful bill tax cuts and are the ACTIVELY and INTENTIONALLY by design the party of financial irresponsibility all while claiming to be the part of...financial responsibility.

Biden and Obama deported more people. Trump blocked new border legislation. Republicans want immigration to be seen as a problem, not to fix it.

Just like Republicans run up the debt with crazy tax cuts then say 'look at this unsustainable debt'. Republicans care more about power and their pet issues than the health and stability of our nation and the people within it.

Here to remind you that Obama deported more people than Trump, and did it peacefully.

Congress has authorized ICE and Border Patrol to act as police forces on domestic soil

I'd be very interested if you have sources for laws passed in congress that allow ICE or Border Patrol to act as police force domestically.

I'd also be curious if you personally agree with such a law, regardless of whether it was passed.

please believe that I'm trying to be constructive and helpful with this response: the way that you phrased your question means that you ignorant about the legal basis for federal policing and federal criminal prosecution in America. Please consider studying this topic before commenting on it.

No they haven't. Police forces' power goes through actual Courts that enforce Constitutional rights above police authority.

ICE/Border Patrol's authority comes through civil law and non-Article III 'immigration' court. Congress explicitly authorized ICE to be something else when they placed ICE in an alternative 'civil law'/immigration system hoping to make them not have to follow the burdens placed on Police/Justice/Judges/Courts by the Constitution.

The police enforces civil law just as same as criminal law. For example, most traffic infractions are civil and don't go "through actual Courts". 'Traffic' court is not an Article 3 court. The funny thing is that a short while ago the same people that demand criminal process for illegal aliens now could not stop themselves from mentioning that immigration infractions are civil, same as traffic violations. So it's not some obscure knowledge for the left...

Do police arrests/detainments go through traffic court? Ice's day to day, reason for existing role goes through the equivalent of traffic court, not actual court with real judges putting them more on the level of meter maid than Police.

>Do police arrests/detainments go through traffic court?

I assume you meant "arrest warrants" because most arrests don't go through any court, the police employs sworn officers (same as ICE and other feds) who have a power to arrest upon a reasonable suspicion. And the police can and does serve administrative arrest warrants. I suppose those are rare from traffic courts but common from parole boards, for example.

No, I meant are police arresting and holding people on purely traffic court violations?

I think I figured what your problem is. You have the whole process backwards. It's not the judge who orders the police around to catch criminals. The police catches criminals and gives them to the DA, who may bring them to court and ask a judge for a conviction. The police does not interact with courts other than testifying or serving warrants, its day-to-day business does not involve courts.

if you mean "ICE agents (as sworn federal agents) are not authorized by statue to arrest people for federal crimes, like entering the US illegally" you are simply wrong.

ICE agents, specifically those in Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), are federal law enforcement officers with statutory authority to arrest individuals for immigration violations, including criminal offenses such as illegal entry into the United States under 8 U.S.C. § 1325 and § 1327.

It is true that many immigration violations are administrative in nature but it doesn't follow that ICE are not police, nor are they not sworn to enforce all federal laws.

If I mean that ICE operates under Immigration courts which are not real/Article III courts and that these courts skirt Constitutional rights on the claim that they are civil, not criminal, than I am, in fact, 100% correct and that ICE are not acting as Police in their main, day to day, purpose for existing capacity.

Why are ICEs training programs so significantly shorter than other law enforcement? Especially if ICE's training covers immigration enforcement and Federal law enforcement training? Shouldn't that make it longer, not significantly shorter? Can an ICE agent transfer to another Federal position (say DC Police) without having a requirement that they take ACTUAL law enforcement training?

They are not the equivalent of Police.

democracy . . .

I wish I could unsubscribe from all US related news. It's just so depressing these days.

Don't worry, this will probably be flagged to death and gone from the front page real soon.

EDIT: and it's gone. From #1 on the front page to page 14 or so in about 35 minutes. To be honest, that took a lot longer than I expected.

Some wishfully frame HN as science and tech, others as views from smart people on complex issues of topical importance, but regardless, political overlap with science or complexity causes flagging "because politics". Forces that degrade discussion are high on political topics, but ... sheesh. A forum with high ability to contribute to rational discourse on complex issues of importance is really hamstrung by this. /rant

I feel HN approaches politics the same the field economics does, they are not involved at all execpt bascically all things in the world heavily involve politics. Tech is no exception, not wanting to overriden but news though is not a crime but this is pretty impactful news even for the tech community.

That US administration wishes you would unsubscribe too.

Yeah, I'd love to cancel my subscription to the administration too.

Would you take a moment to consider that the ostrich maneuver ended with the animal on the dinner table?

Wouldn't this increase US exposure to foreign intervention in the future? Although China is the worst offender, since a while now they are getting their stuff together. They suffered and later fixed some gross air pollutions in their cities.

The rest of the world is also pretty much on board with this clean air and climate change stuff as it turns out people generally like clean air, so if this sticks at some point the only logical next step would be to compel US to stop polluting the world.

If I understand correctly, this also removes EPA ability to regulate car emissions, arguing that it will allow for cheaper cars. Why would US public really wants newly made clunkers on their cities? Polluting cars are horrible city life quality downgrade that even the rich can't escape.

Also, will this allow to put the banned due to the dieselgate VW vehicles back on the roads?

China was an offender at the time yes. But even so, since 1980, when effects of climate change were first known, US has emitted 250Gt and China only 263 Gt, which in per capita terms places US at 690t/p and China at 185 t/p. This is despite China having one child policy since 1979 (which by the way has been heavily criticized by the US).

In all, the case for US being the real villain here keeps getting stronger and stronger.

I enjoyed the 2009 book Ultimatum about this scenario -- what could you do to make a global polluter to stop if they were endangering the world? https://www.amazon.com/Ultimatum-Matthew-Glass-ebook/dp/B002...

I don’t know by what means foreign countries would intervene in the US. They’d just ignore whatever is requested of them.

But it will increase US dependency on foreign countries in the long term. EVs are the future and if US manufacturers aren’t working on them then they’ll continue to lose market share to foreign companies.

The means would initially be similar to those used against other mildly-rogue regimes such those of Serbia and Mali: withdrawal of cooperation, fines, and limited sanctions.

If we get to the late 2040s and the rest of the world is within touching distance of net zero but the US remains as an extreme outlier in its refusal to decarbonise, then we could well see harsher measures such as those applied to the likes of Russia and Venezuela.

US is 350M people, let's say everyone is climate change sceptic and together with Russia, Australia and Saudi Arabia it totals to about 550M people.

In the rest of the world the idea that you can just just pump as much as smoke you like and it will magically disappear isn't popular. Maybe because they all had some polluting industry around that made them miserable or maybe because they live in dirty overcrowded cities and noticed that smog isn't pleasant or maybe because they don't have much fossil energy sources, they are generally not skeptical of the idea that "not polluting is good". Just as with vaccines or abortion, climate change or simply the desire to live in a clean environment isn't a divisive topic in most of the world.

So its going to be 8B people trying to compel 0.5B people to live in clean environments and take care of the output of their industries. I think the 8B will be able to do that one way or another.

Or to move your polluting industry there

That ship sailed with the destruction of the global world order. The polluting industries probably don't have to be polluting when you take care of the pollutants.

The rest of the world is not on board. Western Europe, United States, and Australia take “breathing considered harmful“ seriously. No other country does, and nobody else is deliberately suppressing their growth. There are plenty of countries taking western money to pretend that they do.

Generally these things follow a Kuznets Curve where you get rich from polluting and then are eventually rich enough to care about poisoning your children.

China's bad air around the time of their Olympics is pointed to as being a turning point that could have toppled the government if not dealt with.

Slightly uniquely they seem to have discovered a way to become even richer by cleaning up their pollution, the timing for EV and renewables working out well, and presumably many other nations will try to follow that pattern going forward.

Even just buying these things from China will make both sides of the trade richer compared with dirtier alternatives.

Believe it or not, most of the people on earth don't worship growth. No one cares about growth just as no one cares about climate change, people want improvement on their lives and a future that can be good. Some policies like paper straws downgrade it and other policies like clean air upgrade it.

When you start thinking in more abstract terms, growth v.s. climate change associated risks is a false dichotomy.

Of course people at first all they care is to get out of a bad situation like poverty but once they are out of poverty they start caring for other things like the future of their children. Apart of fossil energy producing countries like USA/Russia/Australia, people don't pretend that pollution is no biggie.

Despite this, since 1980, US, EU and Australia have been the biggest polluters since 1980 when climate change was first known to be man made. (Read my other comment)

I’m pretty sure that’s not remotely true. Look at the state of the Ganges River or the visibility in any major Chinese Metropolitan area. Many countries just ignore these patently obvious ecological disasters. The notion that climate was in a pleasant homeostasis until European people arrived is absurd on its face and contrary to geological record.

You are being scammed. Billionaires just want an excuse to assert control over all human activity. Climate Doom is an eschatological religion for atheists. Conserve forests, control industrial waste, substitute toxic products, of course. But your breath is an existential threat to all life on Earth? It’s ridiculous and it has completely derailed productive environmental efforts with carbon-trade scams and a regulatory priesthood demanding sacrifice. Meanwhile serious people can barely get a hearing on aquifer depletion, topsoil loss, overfishing, food quality, or source water protection.

Exhalation accounts for maybe 10% of co2 activities. But our carbon comes from what we eat which is in a loop with photosynthesis. It does not accumulate in the same way emissions do.

Meanwhile we add 10x of that every in a system that does not have a drain for it.

> The rest of the world is also pretty much on board with this clean air and climate change stuff as it turns out people generally like clean air

Are you sure about that? Or you mistaking the world's opinion for that of the out-of-touch elites living in their lofty ivory towers? Because in the world, outside the media controlled by these elites, I see the exact opposite: it turns out THE WORLD generally like electricity at 2 cents per kwh (not 50 cents how elites like it), no matter how much carbon dioxide it emits.

AFAICT the only 2c/kwh electricity is solar or hydro.

In fact, wind and solar often bid negative amounts to sell power.

For those confused by this, the way a utility buys power is they take bids from powerplants, and then "fill their bucket" with the cheapest options, the most expensive, cheapest option is what everyone gets paid. So if you can compete in a market with coal and coal is 8 cents/kwh, and you have zero operational costs, you can bid negative values to always be in the bucket and be compensated 8 cents/kwh.

I'm pretty sure. Once I sniffed air as a non-elite and I like it clean.

It's ironic how you're (unknowingly) doing the fossil fuel industry's bidding while ranting about an ominous elite that doesn't care about regular people.

This is so out of touch. Coal is the most expensive electricity source in the US and it's not even close. We have an administration pushing coal.

That means you get worse air, worse water, AND you pay more for it. Some of y'all are so delusional that you're not only fine with getting fucked up the ass, you're actually willing to pay more for it!

One step closer to Spaceballs

every day the US strays further from the light :(

One step forward, two steps backwards. Anything good the Democrats may do (yes, it happens sometimes, rarely) will immediately get repelled by the death cult that are the Republicans. If for no other reasons that to "own the libs", they would destroy the whole world.

If this country is to have any future, it must get rid of the Republican party, try all its officials for treason to the American people and ideals of the US Republic and constitution, then disenfranchise their alienated voter base until they get back to living in material reality.

Sounds like healthcare costs are going up in the USA.

I think we should lock them all in a room filled with CO2 and methane and then ask them if they still think they're not harmful.

How exactly is this not just like a global policy thing rather than EPA? Surely our emissions affect other countries' qualities of life so the decision is not just up to us.

The US has refused to sign onto international climate agreements. Who’s going to enforce that policy against the US?

Nature through climate catastrophes?

Beyond its role in climate change, elevated concentrations of CO₂ pose a direct physiological threat to human health, ranging from inflammation to respiratory stress. The Trump presidency is trying to protect coal and oil for some reason. Money, lobbying, bribery anyone?

We need to look past the political noise and focus on the immediate data: CO₂ is a pollutant that harms human physiology. Regardless of where you stand on climate policy, we should all agree that breathing toxic air is unacceptable. We need to prioritize respiratory health and cognitive safety above partisan loyalty

https://open.substack.com/pub/minimallysustained/p/beyond-th...

This is a bad take. CO2 will not harm your personal health in the short term, in the amounts measured in current atmospheric readings. You personally have a higher percentage of CO2 in your body every time you breathe. You currently breathe about 430 ppm of CO2. Toxic levels are above 5000 ppm (40000 is regarded as immediately dangerous).

You're arguing the right side but you're using the wrong arguments. This is actually counter productive.

Trump has a couple of more years left on this planet. He'll never see the effects of his policies, but he'll do everything to please his donors. That's about it.

Donors? Most of these people are paying bribes, not donating.

Why is this flagged? Is the climate no longer a science story?

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46994006

You mean CO2 is not the same as CFCs?

CFCs are bad because they make the government get cancer. CO2 is fine because it'll make your grandchildren die in a heatwave or drown in a flood, that won't happen in the next few election cycles.

The joke in the refrigeration industry is that "it's not bad for the environment until DuPont's patent expires".

Now obviously they were bad for the environment all along, but I don't think it's a coincidence that nothing was done about CFCs until the 3rd world got good at making them cheap.

The joke is getting a little out of date though since the new stuff is hydrocarbons and CO2 (and you can't patent those).

Shameful

Reply on news.ycombinator.com