What are you smoking, Smokey Joe?

Barton worries that EPA will regulate runners 5

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) is concerned about the plight of marathon runners under a cap-and-trade plan. No, we’re not making this up.

Barton, the ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee and a vocal climate skeptic, told conservative magazine Newsmax in an interview published on Monday that he is worried that regulating greenhouse-gas emissions under the Clean Air Act would lead to the regulation of everything under the sun—including marathoners.

An excerpt:

Barton says the average healthy adult exhales between four-tenths of a ton and seven-tenths of a ton of CO2 a year.

“So if you put 20,000 marathoners into a confined area, you could consider that a single source of pollution, and you could regulate it,” Barton says. “The key would be whether the EPA said that 20,000 people running the same route was one source or not.”

One indication that the EPA likely would consider 20,000 runners a single source of pollution is that the agency is trying to regulate waste-water runoff and emissions of drilling rigs in oil fields by attempting to define entire areas as a single source of pollution, Barton says.

Never mind that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has indicated she has no interest in regulating small sources—the agency’s regulations would target major industrial sources emitting at least 25,000 metric tons of carbon per year, as well as the transportation sector. And no, the “transportation sector” doesn’t include runners.

Kate Sheppard is Grist’s political reporter.

Related Stories

Advertisement
Advertisement
  1. Sean Casten's avatar

    Sean Casten Posted 1:47 pm
    12 May 2009

    Barton isn't stupid.  But he isn't trying to advocate a better carbon bill, or indeed even to dirty his own hands with killing what's on offer.  He's simply trying to make the Dems look bad, stirring up noise so that the Rs can say that the Ds failed to enact their key legislative priorities two years from now.  Ditto for many of the others in the R party who are talkin' crazy every time they get a microphone in front of them:  They talk crazy, media reports on the crazy, gullible media asks Dems what they think of the crazy, Dems formulate responses to the crazy and the net result is really busy inaction, playing a game where the crazies write the rules.It really isn't that hard to play another game.  You simply walk past Barton when he talks, stick your hands in your hears, say "LALALALA I'M NOT LISTENING TO CRAZY JOE LALALALA", keep walking and then get back to being productive.  Anything that engages beyond that is playing into his intent.  The man deserves to be marginalized.  Let's give him what he deserves, until he's willing to engage more constructively.

    Permalink

  2. Chris McMasters's avatar

    Chris McMasters Posted 11:01 pm
    12 May 2009

    I second that.

    Permalink

  3. amazingdrx Posted 12:02 am
    13 May 2009

    Barton has watched too much Colbert,hehey.  "Say it ain't so joe",palin.

    Permalink

  4. Javaman Posted 7:06 am
    13 May 2009

    barton is what I like to call "an opportunist alarmist". aka an idiot.

    Permalink

  5. amazingdrx Posted 9:13 am
    13 May 2009

    The trouble with dismissing this nonsense is that it is the tip of the iceberg.For instance: Up until about 15 years ago, foamy pollution was evident just below the papermill dam here on the Wisconsin River.  How was it "cleaned up"?  large golding tanmks were installed to mix the contaminated water exiting the plant with river water, so the foam would not be evident in the much diluted effluent.  A fake fix.But legal! Why? Because pollution is measured as a percentage of water/air, and industry has virtually unlimited water use.  This green (stream) washing has been repeated 10s of thousands of times across the country.  Did it help stop pollution?Joe Barton claims that concentrating the breath of 1000s of runners constitutes pollution under point-source rules, but obviously the runners breathing as on any normal day, not in a group, creates the same total amount of GHG.So spread the nat gas drill rig pollution all over western ground water and it's ok?  But having it come from one point source like a refinery would be regulated?  or dilute nuclear waste in ocean water and it's harmless?  We have work to do to defeat this creative bioshpere destruction in the name of the corporate bottomline.How to really stop industrial pollution and GHG?  Instead of greenwashing it.http://search.twitter.com/search?q=amazingdrx

    Permalink

Add a Comment

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have an account, log in. If you don't have an account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.

Hello, Visitor!    Why not register?

Viewed
More
Commented
More
Advertisement