Great News: EPA to Regulate Carbon Dioxide, U.S. Economy Officially On Life Support

Apparently the Obama administration plans to completely wreck the U.S. economy as fast as possible. It's bad enough we're spending trillions in bailouts and so-called "stimulus" plans, but now they're really going over the edge by proposing to regulate carbon dioxide, all in some strange quest to fight mythical global warming.

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming of the planet, according to top Obama administration officials.

The decision, which most likely would play out in stages over a period of months, would have a profound impact on transportation, manufacturing costs and how utilities generate power. It could accelerate the progress of energy and climate change legislation in Congress and form a basis for the United States’ negotiating position at United Nations climate talks set for December in Copenhagen.

Read that part again: a profound impact on transportation, manufacturing costs and how utilities generate power. Translated: You're going to be gouged like never before.

No doubt this will help "create" jobs, no?

Good luck selling this risky scheme to all those industrial blue states that make up the base of the Democrat Party.

Even some who favor an aggressive approach to climate change said they were wary of the agency’s asserting exclusive authority over carbon emissions. They say that the Clean Air Act, now more than 40 years old, was not designed to regulate ubiquitous substances like carbon dioxide. Using the law, they say, would capture carbon emissions from new facilities, but not existing ones, blunting its impact. They also believe that a broader approach that addresses all sectors of the economy and that is fully debated in Congress would be better than a regulatory approach that could drag through the courts for years.

Why bother with the courts/ King Obama can just sign an executive order, stick his nose in the air and be done with it.

That is not likely to assuage critics, including many Democrats from states dependent on coal-generated electricity and manufacturing jobs, where such regulation could significantly increase costs. Representative John D. Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who has long championed the interests of the auto industry, said that the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions by the E.P.A. would set off a “glorious mess” that would resonate throughout the economy.

Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, warned Ms. Jackson during her January confirmation hearing that she should not undercut Congress’s authority by using the agency’s regulatory power to address global warming. Mr. Barrasso called the use of the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon “a disaster waiting to happen.”

There no queston this strangling of the economy while we're in a recession will just makes things far worse, but apparently that's what Obama and the Democrats want so they can continue spreading their message of fear and crisis wherever they go.

They'll pay a huge price themselves in the 2010 midterm elections.

Linked at Gateway Pundit. Thanks!