This morning’s Winnipeg Free Press editorial urges the Harper Government to start regulating so-called greenhouse gases because the Environmental Protection Agency, a U.S. government department is moving to do the same. Never mind that CO2 is not a pollutant, except in the mind of extreme “shut down the economy” environmentalists. The logic is that Canada’s position on the climate change file has been to harmonize policy with what the U.S. is doing.
But there is more to this story. The Congress has overwhelmingly rejected cap and trade and other policies designed to smother efficient carbon based energy forms. The EPA is courting suicide by defying the will of elected officials. In my discussions with folks “in the know” down south, the Congress will be moving to slash the budget of the EPA if it continues down the fairy tale road of carbon dioxide regulation. Expect the EPA to blink on this rather than be neutered. The Free Press is wrong to suggest we make a wrong, very premature policy move because of some ambitious EPA bureaucrats. Time to study how American politics works.
