Obamacare & John Locke, EPA Lead Paint, and a Biofuel Fix

OBAMACARE RULING – MARLO LEWIS

Openmarket.org: Court’s Obamacare Decision — What Would John Locke Say?

What [Chief Justice] Roberts the “statesman” doesn’t get is that when the judges engage in policy-driven, results-oriented, jurisprudence, they forfeit their claim to impartiality. Each time they do this, they reinforce the conclusion that the system is rigged and that justice is to be found only in the strength of one’s own party or faction — or one’s own arms. In other words, when justices are no better than politicians in black robes, they undermine the social compact and bring back the state of war.

EPA LEAD PAINT RULE – ANGELA LOGOMASINI

Openmarket.org: Unexceptional Ruling on Lead Paint

Homeowners seeking to do renovations on pre-1978-built homes will continue to pay extra because of the EPA’s lead paint rule — and a federal court has ruled that there will be no exceptions. On June 22, a federal court upheld the Obama administration’s elimination of “opt-out” provisions under the original regulation issued by the Bush administration. As a result, many consumers will pay high costs for little benefit in return unless Congress acts.

BIOFUEL FIX – MARLO LEWIS

Globalwarming.org – Rep. Jeff Flake’s Commonsense Fix for Cellulosic Biofuel Folly

Congress … in late 2007 passed the Energy Independence and Security Act. EISA mandated the sale of 36 gallons of biofuel by 2022, with 21 billion gallons to come from ”advanced” (lower-carbon) biofuels, of which 16 billion gallons must be cellulosic.

Well, it’s now six years later, and cellulosic ethanol is still a taxpayer-subsidized science project. EISA (p. 32) required refiners to sell 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol in 2010, 250 million gallons in 2011, and 500 million gallons in 2012. Reality repeatedly forced the EPA to dumb down the mandated quantities (to 6.5 million gallons in 2010, 6.0 million in 2011, and 8.65 million in 2012). Even those symbolic targets proved to be too ambitious, because, as a commercial commodity, cellulosic biofuel still does not exist.

Nonetheless, the EPA fines refiners millions of dollars for failure to sell this non-existent fuel. Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake has a commonsense solution, H.R. 6047, the Phantom Fuel Reform Act.

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