The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If “Thou shalt not covet” and “Thou shalt not steal” were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.
– John Adams
In March 2013, Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of US forces in the Pacific, said our nation’s greatest long-term security threat in the region was climate change, not China and that nation’s growing military. Not North Korea and nuclear threats. Climate change.1
Chuck Hagel, senator from Nebraska between 1997 and 2009 and secretary of defense since 2013, once called on authors of a leading government report, the National Intelligence Estimate, to look deeper at what he characterized as the global risks of climate change.2 Later, Hagel also labeled climate change in a report by the American Security Project a long-term and unpredictable threat for twenty-first-century nations.3 And John Kerry, during his confirmation hearings for secretary of state in January 2013, vowed to then fellow senators that he would use his global platform to press for crucial climate change policy reforms, calling the issue a threat to humanity.4
Meanwhile, Congress and the White House under President Obama ratcheted up their orders for all branches of the military to find ways to lessen reliance on overseas oil, in part to reduce national security threats. But exploiting untapped American oil sources by drilling on domestic land was not an option for this administration. Rather, the military was told to find ways to expand its clean energy program.
So our soldiers stationed in Djibouti began using tents topped with solar panels. And troops stationed at Fort Irwin, California, began experimenting with “smart” generators, small power grids (microgrids) that can stand alone or work in tandem with commercial power grids and that monitor and regulate energy using computer technology.5
The Pentagon deployed the microgrid technology to an even more tactical environment, sending it to the battlegrounds of Camp Sabalu-Harrison in Parwan, Afghanistan.6 Standard military transport vehicles like the Humvee were outfitted with solar panels near their rear hatches. The US Navy and US Air Force tried out fifty-fifty mixes of biofuel and standard fuel in their fighter jets. And even assault ships went green, as the US Navy switched its amphibious USS Makin Island to hybrid-electric propulsion.7
By itself, the military’s push for cleaner energy is sound policy in the sense that no sane person actually comes out in support of more pollution, and also in the sense that the less America has to rely on foreign – and sometimes enemy – nations for energy, the better. Besides, the military has often served as a technological leader for change. President Theodore Roosevelt’s early 1900s Great White Fleet was a coal-powered collection of steel ships that made a historic journey around the world that solidified further the decades-long shift from sail to steam.8 Even today, the four squadrons that set off for the fourteen-month, round-the-world trip – the first of its kind for steam-powered, steel battleships – are still the pride of the Navy, regarded as one of America’s greatest peacetime military achievements. Roosevelt in part commissioned the sixteen vessels to make the journey as a show of force to the Japanese, and as an assurance to the American people that the nation was well prepared for war.9
But what if America’s modern-day national security decisions are being driven more by an environmental agenda and less by security concerns? What if the Big Green switch in the military is being flipped by radicals who care only about reversing so-called climate change?
In June 2013, a top Department of Defense official suggested that the military might be headed down just that path. Daniel Chiu, the deputy assistant secretary of DOD strategy, told a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars crowd that climate change impacts the world’s food and water supplies, which in turn impacts where people around the world want to live – which in turn can fuel clashes and wars. Therefore, he said, defense officials were taking climate change very seriously and were on board with taking preemptive actions. What kind of preemptive action?
He said America in general, and the Department of Defense in particular, needed to work with other nations and nongovernmental groups to do whatever could be done to offset climate change.
It’s a global security priority, said Chiu.10
Sounds like an Al Gore dream come true. Chiu not only suggested climate change was a top issue but in essence recommended that America cede some sovereignty in the process by collaborating with other nations to formulate a global policy.
The US military devoted to the global common good – that’s a dramatic departure from upholding the Constitution and protecting America’s freedoms. America’s military should not be more concerned with social justice, as environmentalism and climate change have now been defined, than with national security. Yet Chiu’s remarks have only gathered steam.
A study published in the online journal Science in August 2013 and picked up by press around the world reported a direct correlation between climate change and acts of violence. The report, titled “Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict,” claimed that even the smallest fluctuations in temperature or rainfall levels brought on an increase in crime, worldwide.11 For example, the researchers found, cases of domestic violence rose in India during times of drought, while rapes, murders, and assaults spiked in the United States during heat waves.12
Interestingly, the study was conducted by researchers at Princeton University; the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and the University of California at Berkeley – one of the most noted liberal institutions of higher learning in the nation. And not to be flippant, but isn’t it common knowledge that tempers flare in high heat? But to suggest that warmer temperatures – versus government corruption, or religious differences, or human greed and aspiration, or any number of other reasons people bicker, fight, and wage war – actually lead to ethnic clashes in Europe and civil wars in Africa is a major jump.13 The report actually concluded that if weather patterns continue, and climate change is not properly addressed, then conflicts among humans could dramatically increase in the coming years.14
That just seems a tad too much to believe. Citing hot weather as a contributing factor for lost tempers during traffic jams is one thing, but blaming the politically charged subject of global warming for causing worldwide violence and ethnic wars is most definitely another – a liberal elitist line of thinking that should be nipped, then ignored. It outright dismisses the root reasons for violence and war, and instead inserts a theory that can be used to infiltrate and control nearly every aspect of human life and activity, from military missions to car emissions to what types of bags may be distributed at grocers.
But this is where environmentalism is these days.
Environmentalism is not so much about commonsense measures – recycling, say, or keeping chemical companies from dumping toxic waste into waterways – but about control. The entire environmentalism mantra has been turned into a social justice debate. It’s all about ensuring each and every human being is afforded the same playing field as his or her neighbor.
This is how the Environmental Protection Agency puts it on its website:
Environmental Justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies. EPA has this goal for all communities and persons across this Nation. It will be achieved when everyone enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, and work.15
What a picture of bliss. Everybody, everywhere, equally protected from all types of health hazards. That may be a worthy goal. But how the EPA tries to realize this nirvana is often via burdensome, costly federal overreaches that seem more in line with padding the pocketbooks of the government and of key environmental policy players, than with bringing about a pollution-free world.
Think carbon dioxide.
In 2009, the EPA decided that carbon dioxide – the same gas humans emit while breathing – is a pollutant because some scientists claimed that it could negatively impact ocean levels, fuel the size and ferocity of damaging wildfires, and contribute to climate change.16 But that whole decision was based on a push from a special-agenda crowd.
The EPA’s entire ruling stemmed from a 1999 suit brought by environmental activists who wanted the agency to implement new limits on carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles.17 That activist-driven case eventually ended at the Supreme Court’s door, and in 2007, the justices said that, yes, “greenhouse gases are covered by the Clean Air Act’s definition of air pollution and that EPA must determine whether or not emissions of greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”18 That gave the EPA the open door to issue its endangerment finding and treat carbon dioxide – and other gases, if it chose – as a pollutant.19
But what’s notable is that the pollutant label was assessed even though the EPA admits carbon dioxide doesn’t directly impact human health – it only leads to changes in the environment that some scientists allege could bring about adverse health conditions on humans.
Interestingly, there’s a whole crowd of independent scientists – those unaffiliated with the government – who say the research used to justify this endangerment ruling was bunk. Led in part by atmospheric physicist Dr. S. Fred Singer, this Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) serves as the fact-checker for the global Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN body with a base mission of saving the environment by generating worldwide regulations and policies that limit human activities.20 Unlike the IPCC, the NIPCC doesn’t begin its scientific research with the premise that all negative environmental impacts are due to human activity.21
As one might imagine, this more open-eyed and scientific approach often leads to sharp differences between the two groups’ findings. While the IPCC issues report after report stressing the need for immediate government action to offset the devastating impacts of climate change, the NIPCC issues statements like this, signed by 31,478 US scientists: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”22
Of course, the EPA largely ignores the NIPCC view.
So what Americans face is a future of dramatically higher energy costs, including fuel and electricity, because producers will have to change how they do business in order to comply with new EPA emission mandates.23 One energy consulting group, ICF International, estimates that by 2020, about 20 percent of the nation’s coal plants will be shuttered, unable to afford all the overhauls and upgrades demanded by the EPA’s clean air laws.24 In fact, the closings have already started; they began shortly after the EPA issued its endangerment rule. In Ohio in 2012, authorities announced the closure of six coal-fired power plants.25 In Georgia that same year, a utility company backtracked on its permit application for a new energy facility.26 The common denominator for both examples was the EPA’s ruling and the inability to pay compliance costs. That means consumers are not only going to be paying the costs the companies have to bear to comply with the EPA’s new mandates, but consumers are also going to pay higher costs because of a simple economic principle: while energy demand remains high, energy sources are dwindling.
And what’s it all for? As independent science says, regulating carbon dioxide emissions won’t dramatically impact the state of climate change.27 What’s worse, Congress didn’t even have a say in this matter – the entire endangerment finding came solely from environmental activists pushing the EPA to act.
That’s a significant power shift that removes the duly elected from the regulatory picture and hands the policy reins to a select few in a federal agency. Moreover, the EPA’s entire environmental justice policy that undercuts its easy acceptance of IPCC science over NIPCC findings, and its quick embrace of the human-induced climate-change theory, come from an even narrower viewpoint than that espoused by environmentalists – the Congressional Black Caucus, and the fewer than fifty lawmakers who make up its membership.
The entire concept of environmental justice is rooted in 1960s-era civil rights struggles, “primarily [by] people of color” who found it unfair that their communities seemed to be harder hit by pollution than others – particularly ones with wealthier residents – the EPA states on its government website.28
In 1990, the Congressional Black Caucus seized the issue. In partnership with EPA officials, the group developed a report that accused that “racial minority and low-income populations bear a higher environmental risk burden than the general population.” Then President Clinton jumped in the mix, and in February 1994 he signed an executive order that directed all federal agencies to put in place environmental justice policies that would help minorities and lower-income earners escape health problems stemming from pollution.29
Environmental rules that protect those least able to defend themselves from the likes of businesses that want to sidestep law and cut cost corners with illegal chemical dumps, for instance, are both sensible and worthy. But basing an entire federal agency’s environmental policy on a civil rights struggle, and equating a push for clean air and water to a fight for equality and justice for all, is a skewed line of logic that seems ripe for abuse. It truly paints a picture that anyone who stands against new environmental laws or new EPA mandates for whatever reason is a selfish profiteer – or worse, racist.
But a decade later, and the environmental justice mantra has only dug in deeper at the EPA. For instance, the agency’s regulatory “roadmap,” Plan EJ 2014, advances the need for the EPA to dig deeper into the community levels of government. Expect the coming years to see more federal encroachment – disguised as assistance and guidance – onto state and local boards and commissions, with the EPA taking a direct hand in how permitting applications are processed so they’re in line with the federal vision of environmental justice.30
At the risk of understating, this is not good news.
In July 2012, the pastor of a small congregation of between twenty and forty people faced the prospect of closing his Good Shepherd Community Church because the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency said the building’s septic system didn’t meet standard. It’s not as if the system was leaking, or broken. Rather, the agency said that because the church building was capable of holding more than the forty people who attended the worship services, the septic system had to be upgraded to provide for the maximum number of individuals the building could hold.31 The pastor said those upgrades could cost up to $60,000 – and the church didn’t have the money to pay.32
In April 2011, the EPA stepped into Fairfax County, Virginia, politics by regulating the level of stormwater that could flow into the Accotink Creek, a tributary that feeds into the Potomac River. The EPA justified its action by saying it had authority under the Clean Water Act to limit stormwater and sediment runoff, to protect living organisms within the water. But Virginia’s attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, claimed otherwise, arguing the EPA had power only to regulate pollutants – and that stormwater wasn’t a pollutant.33 The issue was divisive and went to court. But a federal court ruled in January 2013 in the commonwealth’s favor, with the judge finding that the EPA does not, as it alleged, have the power to regulate stormwater because it’s a non-pollutant.34 As Cuccinelli had queried: how can the EPA consider water itself a pollutant? The ruling handed builders and those in the construction trade – as well as Virginia taxpayers – a huge victory. Had the EPA won, the county would have faced a $300 million cost to reduce stormwater flow into Accotink Creek by the agency’s demand of almost 50 percent.35
A few months later, and the EPA was at it again – this time, citing the Clean Air Act as justification for banning wood-burning stoves in private homes.
The EPA issued regulations limiting the level of “airborne fine-particle matter” to twelve micrograms per cubic meter of air in late 2013 – a revamp of its old policy that allowed for emission levels of fifteen micrograms per cubic meter of air.36 One immediate effect of the new regulation was that it made illegal an estimated 80 percent of woodstoves located in homes and cabins around the nation.37 The ever-helpful EPA set up a partnership program, Burn Wise, to help Americans discern whether their particular models violated the new regulation and touting the “importance of burning the right wood, the right way, in the right wood-burning appliance to protect your home, health and the air we breathe.”38
Seven states – Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont – quickly jumped aboard the EPA “ban-wagon” and in October 2013 started a suit to demand the EPA extend its crackdown on woodstoves to wood-burning water heaters.39 Some local governments have taken up the cause, too, banning not just the purchase of the EPA’s banned stoves, but also the use of old stoves that haven’t been replaced, and in some cases, of fireplaces that haven’t received the federal agency’s environmental stamp of approval.40
Such scenarios give rise to former president Ronald Reagan’s warning: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”41 Do we really need more federal environmental regulation breathing down the backs of state and local governments – entities that are hard enough to control as it is?
But EPA environmental justice policy is just one hammer the agency has at its disposal to compel new law. Think what happens when it gets a hand in enforcement from other federal entities – like the Department of Justice.
Remember Gibson Guitars? In 2011, the company’s factories in Tennessee were raided by federal agents over alleged violations of the Lacey Act, which was amended in 2008 to prohibit wood obtained in breach of foreign or domestic laws from being imported into the United States.42
The Department of Justice under attorney general Eric Holder accused Gibson of importing ebony from Madagascar and both rosewood and ebony from India, in violation of harvesting and export laws those countries put in place to protect environmentally sensitive forestry.43 Madagascar, for instance, issued a report in 2008 that the harvest and export of ebony was illegal, leading Gibson a year later to turn to a middleman to provide ebony via a circuitous route – a route that it still believed was legal.44 The Department of Justice accused Gibson of knowingly breaking the countries’ harvest and export laws, though. So in August 2011, roughly thirty armed federal agents swooped in and seized the wood – a move CEO Henry Juszkiewicz said cost the company millions of dollars.45
In August 2012, Gibson reached a settlement with the Justice Department. It agreed to pay a $300,000 fine, contribute $50,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and forfeit wood it had purchased from Madagascar at the price of $261,844. Gibson was also stuck with the $2.4 million in legal fees it spent to fight the government.46
The feds were to return wood it seized in 2011, valued at $155,000.47
The message the federal raid sent the American people was clear and foreboding: don’t mess with us.
Even Speaker of the House John Boehner, a quasi-conservative who irks Tea Party types with his frequent concessions to the Obama administration, saw the Justice Department’s shakedown as a government overreach. In media reports, Boehner characterized the federal government’s targeting of the respected Gibson company as an unnecessary fiasco that wasted company resources.48 Other members of Congress demanded the White House explain why on one hand President Obama wanted “Made in America” stamps on products all over the world, but on the other, squelched small business in the United States with a regulatory atmosphere that hinted of despotism.49
Nearly two years later, Congress was still awaiting its reply. On May 29, 2013, Rep. Marsha Blackburn once again asked the White House, the Justice Department, and the Interior Department to explain the necessity of the raids on Gibson Guitar and to account for the atmosphere of fear that ensued.50
We’ll never hear from the Obama administration on this.
Meanwhile, the radical environmental agenda that’s taken root in this nation continues to grow. And the federal government is hardly the lone taker of individual rights in this regard.
Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg – also known as the nanny of New York – pledged in February 2013 to do away with all vestiges of plastic foam cups and Styrofoam containers within city limits, characterizing them as environmental hazards that pollute both streets and waterways.51 He proposed in his final State of the City address a new rule that schools stop serving food on plastic foam trays, that restaurants and fast-food establishments quit using the packaging, and that all take-out trays, cups, and carry items use materials other than Styrofoam. Several city council members saw the proposed ban in a favorable light, calling it the natural next step in bolstering recycling in the city.52
Meanwhile, cities and counties around the nation, from Los Angeles to the District of Columbia, have been debating the merits of banning plastic bags in stores for the same reasons – to keep the streets and waterways free of the trash. Some cities have passed bans on the bags, some have tried but failed, and still others have imposed fees on shoppers who choose plastic bags.
In the District of Columbia, for example, the 2010 Anacostia River Clean Up and Protection Act, so-dubbed the Bag Law, requires that all businesses that sell food or alcohol pay five cents for each plastic or paper bag.53 The fee, of course, is generally passed on to the customer.
Just a nickel; no big deal?
That’s one way of looking at it. Another is that it’s just one more government regulation in the name of the environment, and all in the name of the “greater good.”
That doesn’t even touch on the more widely publicized topic of regulatory takings or private property infringements that have occurred in recent years due to environmental arguments. The federal government pretty much controls every aspect of human activity that could pollute the nation’s air and water, disturb a protected animal or plant, ruin a decreed wetland, or damage a labeled historic area or building – and where the feds haven’t legislated, the states and localities have taken up the slack. It’s gotten to the point now where some homeowners can’t build a backyard shed without first obtaining permission from a local board to ensure compliance with floodplain laws, burn wood in their own fireplaces, or pave a new driveway and erect a property fence without paying massive permitting costs to abide by arbitrary stormwater runoff regulations.
With today’s radical environmental regulatory atmosphere, the state of private property rights is this: You get to keep the property and pay its taxes. But the government gets to tell you what you can do on it.
Meanwhile, Americans are fielding ever more fire against freedom from the private sector.