The Wind Police

The federal government, in particular the EPA, has been trying to find their way around the Clean Air Act to implement more stringent caps on Carbon, Sulfur, and Nitrogen pollutants. To do this, the EPA began implementing tighter pollution standards on air in states that are downwind from neighboring states creating pollution (although the pollution meets the standards in the Clean Air Act). To make matter worse, the Supreme Court recently ruled this is constitutional. Hence, the federal government has the authority to police our wind and in particular what is in our winds. This made me wonder, how does the federal government actually track this? Winds are not necessarily predictable, is there a model for this and how does it work? And how much does this cost the taxpayers?

If all of this is not bad enough, what is to stop the federal government from doing the following:

• Police water for downstream pollutants in neighboring states.
• Fine states where tornados originate that cross state lines. Or those states contributing the most pollutants per capita will be blamed for tornados.
• Fine state where forest fire smoke originates that crosses state lines. Or those states contributing the most pollutants per capita will be blamed for the forest fire smoke.
• Those states contributing the most pollutants per capita will be fined to pay for U.S. hurricane damages.

What happens when states fight back? What happens when states where rivers and winds originate begin to charge down water and downwind states fees for using their products – especially if they need the funds to help pay for pollution fines. Can the Supreme Court rule taxing wind would be a violation the Commerce Clause when the Supreme Court ruled it is okay to fine wind particles?

The other aspect of this law is it is unfair because it punishes states based on wind production (weather) and proximity (things completely out of their control). For instance, two states or companies producing the same amount of pollutants will be treated differently. One state or company may affect several downwind states, but the other state or company may not affect any downwind states. This in itself should be unconstitutional. And it would come as no surprise, the biggest coal producing states all have neighboring downwind states.

Hence, the entire goal of the EPA wind police is to rid the American energy system of coal. They want to make coal as expensive as possible whereas renewables are a better option. If environmentalists and the EPA get their way, all Americans will be paying an additional 200% increase on their energy bills.