Six Georgia Congressmen Challenge Greenhouse Regulations

Six Georgia Congressmen Challenge Greenhouse Regulations

Atlanta The Atlanta Business Chronicle

BY DAVE WILLIAMS

Six Republican congressmen from Georgia have signed onto an Atlanta-based organization's legal challenge of a federal announcement that could lead to government regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

The Southeastern Legal Foundation filed a petition last week calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider its Dec. 7 "endangerment finding" declaring carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming a threat to public health and the environment.

The petition argues that news of a conspiracy within the scientific community to hide evidence that calls into question manmade impacts on global warming has emerged since the closing of public comment on the EPA filing.

According to widespread media reports, e-mails stolen from the climate unit at the University of East Anglia in Great Britain appeared to show some of the world's leading scientists discussing how to shield data from the public.

"The scientific basis for the EPA endangerment finding is flawed, based on questionable and potentially fraudulent data, and certainly does not rise to the level of certainty necessary to upend the American economy, toss millions out of work, and which promises little or no climate change benefit over the next half-century," said Shannon Goessling, the group's executive director and chief legal counsel. "Using the Clean Air Act as a weapon and a shield does not justify the bigger agenda of command-and-control."

The foundation also criticized the EPA finding as an attempt to bypass Congress by imposing costly regulation of greenhouse gases administratively.

The fate of pending legislation to regulate carbon dioxide emissions through a cap-and-trade system is far from certain.

"The goal is to compel the federal government to follow the laws as enacted by Congress and to pursue legitimate public policy based on legitimate scientific data," Goessling said. "The American people deserve no less, and the U.S. Constitution mandates it."

Joining the foundation as plaintiffs are Republican U.S. Reps. Paul Broun of Athens, Nathan Deal of Gainesville, Phil Gingrey of Marietta, John Linder of Duluth, Tom Price of Roswell and Lynn Westmoreland of Grantville.