CEI Today: Cancer risk from foam cups?, the growing irrelevance of US climate policy, and the regulatory recession

CANCER RISK – ANGELA LOGOMASINI

Openmarket.org: Cancer Risks Unlikely From Foam Cups

Whatever happened to plastic foam coffee cups? Visit any to-go coffee shop and you will most likely only find paper cups that burn your hands and let your coffee go cold.

Cups made with polystyrene foam are disappearing from the marketplace because a bevy of misinformation about their environmental effects, including claims styrene — the chemical used to make them — is a carcinogen. 

GLOBAL WARMING – MARLO LEWIS

Globalwarming.org: The Growing Irrelevance of U.S. Climate Policy

The world will burn around 1.2 billion more tons of coal per year in 2017 than it does today — an amount equal to the current coal consumption of Russia and the United States combined. Today’s Climatewire (subscription required) summarizes data and projections from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) from which we may conclude that EPA regulation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is increasingly irrelevant to global climate change even if one accepts agency’s view of climate science.

Basically, it all comes down to the fact that China’s huge and increasing coal consumption overwhelms any reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions the EPA might achieve. > Read the full commenary on Globalwarming.org

REGULATORY CLIFF – JOHN BERLAU

Openmarket.org: The Coming Regulatory Recession?

The Bureau of Economic Analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce reported the stunning news the U.S. economy actually contracted by 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012. The immediate response by many politicians and the establishment media was to blame spending cuts, or the threat of them, rather than even look at the dramatic increase in regulation over the last few years.