Opponents of EPA soot science are asking the agency to pick a side: evil or inept.

A lawsuit being trumpeted by Sen. Jim Inhofe makes the most lurid of accusations against the agency's long-running experiments on the health effects of particulate matter, explicitly likening them to Nazi atrocities.

The suit, by website publisher Steve Milloy, offers the EPA two unattractive options: either admit that the agency deliberately exposed the sick and elderly to dangerous air pollution, or admit that soot isn't that hazardous after all - undermining the agency's regulations.
Agency lawyers will probably look to defend the agency with a third option: arguing that the studies use carefully calibrated short-term exposure to air pollution, similar to what many people experience in cities such as Los Angeles and Beijing.

The EPA didn't respond to questions about the lawsuit Monday.
Milloy, who filed the federal suit last week in Alexandria, Va., runs JunkScience.com, a website dedicated to taking down bad science - and the EPA. He also wrote the book "Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them."

"When the work underground stops," a TV reporter in Boone County, W.Va., said last Friday, "everything above pays the price." She was reporting that two local coal mines would soon start laying off workers. One was preparing to lay off 116 miners in a matter of weeks, the second had yet to finalize the number to be let go.

This is a situation that has sadly become all too familiar under the Obama administration's war on coal. Alpha Natural Resources Tuesday announced it will be scaling back its coal production, eliminating 1,200 jobs and closing eight mines in Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. Alpha's chief executive officer, Kevin Crutchfield, lamented "a regulatory environment that's aggressively aimed at constraining the use of coal."

The House on Friday plans to launch a counterattack to the administration's relentless efforts to regulate coal into oblivion, by voting on the Stop the War on Coal Act to prevent more job losses and plant closures. This is a series of bills that aim to stop the Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory assault on the U.S. coal power sector.

It has been a long time since we heard the term "global warming" from the mainstream media and the environmental left-but now that we're experiencing a hot summer, we're back to the good old days, as the left tries to drum up the hysteria they once enjoyed.

Over the past few weeks, I had the chance to welcome my alarmist friends back to the discussion about global warming: we've heard news reports with headlines proclaiming this summer is "what global warming looks like" and Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have all jumped to blame the recent heat, droughts, and-in Sen. Reid's case-even the cherry blossoms blossoming early in Washington, D.C. on man-made global warming.

When the weather is hot, according to them, we have proof of global warming. But this is a dangerous game to play because once it turns cold, they will go right back to saying it's climate change not global warming, weather is not climate, and that freezing temperatures are consistent with an overheating planet.

LAS VEGAS -- Following a speech that many observers here saw as among the most forceful confrontations of climate change in recent memory by a high-ranking government official, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he hopes the Senate will take up a bill to put a price on carbon emissions if Democrats maintain control of the chamber next year.

"We certainly can't stay where we are; we have to do something," Reid told Greenwire yesterday as he browsed exhibits at his National Clean Energy Summit 5.0.

Asked whether the Senate would return to climate legislation aimed at adding a price to carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping emissions, Reid said, "I hope so."

Watts Up With That: Alarmist fact checking - street lights don't melt at 115°F: I wonder if it ever occurred to these guys to check to see how many streetlights melt in Phoenix (or Riyadh and Baghdad) each year where the temperature routinely reaches 115°F and as high as 122°F ? Or why only two globes melted on one side? They are High density polyethelene HDPE Polyethylene White Street Light Globes, Melting Point: 266°F 130°C

Daily Caller: Dumpster fire, not global warming, melted Oklahoma streetlamps: Always a lightning rod for global warming activists' discontent, Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe was treated to some challenging tweets Thursday after the left-wing blog ThinkProgress posted a photo of melting street lights in his home state and claimed they were the result of global warming."WOW. It's so hot in Oklahoma that the streetlights are melting," ThinkProgress declared, noting the temperature topping off at 114 degrees."Hey Senator @InhofePress, even your streetlights are saying #ImTooHot http://ow.ly/cHbX4," the Climate Reality Project tweeted later, linking to the ThinkProgress claim."Senator Inhofe, God may be trying to get your attention. Check out this picture http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/02/630211/in-oklahoma-its-so-hot-the-street-lights-are-melting/ ..." added Environmental activist Bill McKibben, highlighted by blogger Tom Nelson. That tweet was later deleted. But according to KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City, the street lamps melted because of a dumpster fire in the area the night before. KFOR first posted the streetlamp photo on its Facebook page. "That is the consensus in the newsroom," a KFOR staffer confirmed to The Daily Caller.

These days in Congress, climate change is a question. Rep. Jim McDermott says a carbon tax is the answer.

McDermott (D-Wash.) will introduce a bill Thursday to create a carbon tax that he says will create incentives for long-term changes in the American energy market without harming the economy, and in fact providing much-needed revenues.

“A carbon tax is simple to administer and easy to understand. Over time, the price of carbon emissions is increased, which in turn, creates a market incentive to reduce emissions,” according to a fact sheet provided by his office.

McDermott doesn’t expect his legislation to move soon, he told POLITICO, but he wants to get the idea stewing in advance of possible tax reforms.

The planet may be getting hotter, but Washington’s debate on climate change isn't heating up.

Amid a summer marked by droughts, wildfires, record temperatures and freak storms, Congress is squeezing in just one hearing on the changing climate before it dashes out for a hot August recess.

And that hearing, set for Wednesday, is unlikely to be a show-stopper: No federal officials will testify and no big-name witnesses will appear — none of the elements that could help this gathering compete for an Olympics-mad public’s attention.

It's a reminder of how much things have changed for Democrats in Congress since their hopes for passing a major cap-and-trade bill died in 2010, reducing the entire climate issue to second-tier status. Now, Republicans are eager to argue, Democrats are reluctant to even talk about the issue in an election year.

A carbon tax could be part of a larger deal on tax and budget, two Senate Democrats who support action on climate change said today.



"I think if it's part of a larger package, we could look at it," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), when asked whether a carbon tax could eventually be passed as part of a "tax swap," which would combine a new levy on emissions with a mechanism to return money to consumers.

The idea has enjoyed a limited resurgence in the past few weeks, with Republicans including former Rep. Bob Inglis (S.C.) and former Reagan administration Secretary of State George Shultz championing it. Some within the policy community have suggested offsetting the tax with a rollback of corporate taxes, but Boxer appeared to indicate she would not support that idea.



"What I want to make sure is the middle class gets the breaks in the interim while we move to clean energy," she said.



Boxer leads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which will hold a hearing tomorrow on the science of climate change -- its first such hearing in more than three years. The California senator said she had always planned to return to the issue as soon as she completed work on a transportation bill.



Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said she probably will not reintroduce a bill this Congress to cap carbon dioxide emissions and refund the money to consumers via dividend checks -- an idea that Inglis has said has merit.



"It's all about timing," she said.



But Cantwell said there has been talk about carbon policy in the context of a deal on the budget.



"I think there's a lot of discussion behind the scenes on both sides about deficit reduction and how to move forward on streamlined policies on all sorts of energy issues," she said. "So I think it will be good for the debate."



But Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.), the top Republican on Boxer's committee, said he envisions a very different kind of carbon legislation that would strip U.S. EPA of the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.



"It's an easy fix," he said. "I believe Republicans will have control of the Senate and [Mitt Romney will] defeat Obama. If that happens, it's an easy fix because it's a legislative fix."



Reporter Jeremy P. Jacobs contributed.

INHOFE UNCOVERS GREEN FLEET NOT JUST R&D AFTER ALL Much has been made about the Navy’s recent Green Fleet exercise in the Pacific. During the event and since, officials have repeatedly made the case that the expenditure of Defense funds for this exercise was limited to Research and Development (R&D). [1] Yet, in order to conduct this major public relations event, R&D funds were not used. Instead, under Sec. Mabus leadership, the Navy used Operations and Maintenance (O&M) funds for last week’s Great Green Fleet demonstration that cost $12 million just to purchase the R&D biofuel for the ships. [2] Tapping into O&M funds for last week’s demonstration means less funding for training, supplies, equipment, repairs, and over all readiness putting at risk the lives of our sailors. This is why I have requested more information on why the Great Green Fleet demonstration was necessary in the first place. I have also asked for the full cost of the event, including the price to transport the fuel for the fleet, sell memorabilia t-shirts, temporarily paint parts of Navy ships and aircraft green, and conduct this publicity stunt sure to make President Obama’s environmentalist base smile. Other similar R&D programs have tested a limited number of engines and equipment to prove their concept. This event seems to be more about putting dollars in the hands of the biofuel industry. http://inhofe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.JimsJournal&ContentRecord_id=c941b337-92e5-1e27-16e7-b8900b70ff9e&Region_id=&Issue_id=