The Carbon Confederacy

Terry Tamminen | @terrytamminen
Tuesday, 28 Jul 2015 | 1:21 PM ETCNBC.com

... A number of leaders are calling on states to secede from the union once again — at least as it applies to the national environmental laws that are designed to protect public health and save money. Let's call them the Carbon Confederacy.

The Jefferson Davis of the Carbon Confederacy is the Republican Senator from Kentucky, Mitch McConnell. In March, he fired the equivalent of the Fort Sumter "first shot" with a letter to all fifty U.S. state governors that called on them to openly defy the federal government's rules to curb carbon pollution.

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases (generally called "carbon" pollution) are air pollutants as defined by the federal Clean Air Act. It is worth noting that the majority of the justices on that court were appointed by presidents of the same political party as Mr. McConnell — a good indicator that this legal decision, and the rules in question, are the result of sound law, policy, and science, not politics ...

Apparently more interested in protecting the coal-mining interests in his own state, Mr. McConnell ignores these settled facts and uses what he sees as the only remaining option: Secede from our "clean air" union ...

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/28/carbon-confederacy-new-war-brewing-over-clean-air-commentary.html