“As the largest energy consumer in the United States, we have a responsibility to American citizens to reduce our energy use and become more efficient,” Obama said. “Our goal is to lower costs, reduce pollution, and shift Federal energy expenses away from oil and towards local, clean energy.”

That ought to shut bin Laden up.

“The Administrator finds that six greenhouse gases taken in combination endanger both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations,” the finding begins.

EPA action has long been seen as a tool to spur congressional action on climate legislation — the threat of EPA regulation could induce otherwise wary lawmakers to pass pollution controls on their own terms — but the timing of today’s announcement suggests another motivation. International climate talks in Copenhagen kicked off this morning, and in the absence of a domestic climate bill, the EPA move gives American negotiators evidence of U.S. action on climate change as they seek commitments from other nations around the world.

“These long-overdue findings cement 2009’s place in history as the year when the United States Government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution and seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said in a press release. “Business leaders, security experts, government officials, concerned citizens and the United States Supreme Court have called for enduring, pragmatic solutions to reduce the greenhouse gas pollution that is causing climate change. This continues our work towards clean energy reform that will cut GHGs and reduce the dependence on foreign oil that threatens our national security and our economy.”

Jackson insisted that the finding was not intended as a prod for the Senate, where prospects for climate legislation remain murky, but rather as the appropriate response to a 2007 Supreme Court hearing that required the EPA to assess the threat posed by greenhouse gases.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the Senate’s leading crusader against climate action, was quick to condemn the finding. “The Administration’s endangerment finding will lead to a wave of new regulations and bureaucracy that will wreak havoc on the American economy, destroy millions of jobs, and force consumers to pay more for electricity and gasoline,” he said in a press release. “This bureaucratic nightmare is based on flawed science.”

Inhofe has long questioned the science behind global warming, but he and his fellow climate change deniers received a boost from the “Climategate” scandal, which raised doubts about the motives of a group of environmental scientists in England. Last week, four Republican lawmakers called on the EPA to withdraw its endangerment finding, citing the scandal.

Looks like the EPA hasn’t taken their advice.

But Joe Romm counters that the program will pay for itself in less than five years, and so we’re essentially making environmental gains at no cost. Cash for clunkers is expected to save around 72 million gallons of gasoline each year. At $3 a gallon (Romm considers this a conservative estimate for the coming years), that amounts to $216 million in annual gasoline savings. At this rate, the $1 billion that’s been allocated to cash for clunkers so far would be more than paid for in a half decade.

Romm maintains that cash for clunkers is not primarily an environmental program, though its green benefits are certainly a plus. Instead, it has important economic and national security implications:

The majority of the $200+ million a year in gasoline savings would have left the country, since we import nearly 2/3 of our oil (and probably a higher fraction of marginal increases in oil use). Now that money stays in the pockets of consumers, who will save some of it and spend the rest of it, circulating most of the money in this country rather than overseas.

Liberal environmentalists have been highly skeptical of the program’s modest fuel-economy provisions, which require an efficiency improvement of just 4 miles per gallon. But so far, the average gain from the program’s trade-ins has been nearly 10 miles per gallon. Despite quibbles over the details, there seems to be a growing consensus about the program’s overall effectiveness.

The Los Angeles Times lays out the significance:

Today’s decision sets the stage for the proposed national vehicle emissions standards that President Obama announced in May: New cars and trucks sold in the U.S. will be required to improve their fuel efficiency gradually over the next seven years, reaching an average of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016 — a 40% improvement over the current 25 mpg level. The federal government agrees to adopt California’s standards as its own, and the state agrees not to toughen the standards before 2017. Automakers agree to drop lawsuits against California’s standards.

California has been pushing the stricter greenhouse gas standards for five years, but the EPA under the Bush administration sided with the auto industry in rejecting them. The argument was that the Clean Air Act doesn’t govern auto emissions — an interpretation that new EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson has rejected outright. “This waiver is consistent with the Clean Air Act as it’s been used for the last 40 years,” Jackson said Tuesday in a statement.

Now if only the administration would apply the same logic to the Clean Water Act, it could end mountaintop mining as well.

“Today we have about 388 parts per million [of carbon dioxide] in the atmosphere,” Shimkus said. “I think in the age of the dinosaurs, when we had most flora and fauna, we were probably at 4,000 parts per million. There is a theological debate that this is a carbon-starved planet, not too much carbon.”

Never mind that I have trouble imagining a theological debate about the chemical makeup of the atmosphere. Why do Republicans keep using this line of reasoning? (This isn’t the first time.) Do they really want our planet to return to an era of enormous lizards and 40-foot snakes?

Ah, but Shimkus does us the favor of explaining his logic. In a word, God:

The earth will end only when God declares it’s time to be over. A man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood. I appreciate having panelists here who are men of faith and we can get into the theological discourse of that position, but I do believe that God’s word is infallible. Unchanging. Perfect.

But back to the core issue: Has there been some sort of agreement among House Republicans that references to very bygone eras will somehow defeat cap-and-trade legislation? Remember that last week, another GOP congressman on Shimkus’ subcommittee, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), pointed to the Vikings as evidence that we can adapt just fine to global warming.

And in case that argument somehow wasn’t working, Shimkus tried another tack, claiming that carbon dioxide is valuable “plant food” that we would be remiss to reduce.

I suppose the arguments in favor of curbing global warming have been a bit human-centric …

Watch Shimkus below:

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There is no theological debate over whether you should follow TWI on Twitter.

Hit hardest would be the “95% of working families” Mr. Obama keeps mentioning, usually omitting that his no-new-taxes pledge comes with the caveat “unless you use energy.” Putting a price on carbon is regressive by definition because poor and middle-income households spend more of their paychecks on things like gas to drive to work, groceries or home heating.

The Congressional Budget Office — Mr. Orszag’s former roost — estimates that the price hikes from a 15% cut in emissions would cost the average household in the bottom-income quintile about 3.3% of its after-tax income every year. That’s about $680, not including the costs of reduced employment and output. The three middle quintiles would see their paychecks cut between $880 and $1,500, or 2.9% to 2.7% of income. The rich would pay 1.7%. Cap and trade is the ideal policy for every Beltway analyst who thinks the tax code is too progressive (all five of them).

Hmm, let’s take a look at this claim.

As the Journal’s editorial board points out later in the editorial, Obama’s plan calls for 80 percent of the revenue generated by selling carbon allowances to be given back to the public through a tax credit of $400 for individuals or $800 for families. If you accept the Journal’s numbers, that means the bottom quintile would gain $120 a year, while higher-income families would lose slightly (in the short term, at least, until alternative energy becomes cheaper).

Don’t believe me? Then take a look at this chart from the very same CBO report cited by the Journal:

Note that although Obama’s plan calls for a tax credit, the effect is that of a lump-sum rebate, because every individual/household would receive the same amount. So the Journal’s questionable math notwithstanding, the poorest 40 percent of Americans would gain from this plan (including a substantial gain by the poorest 20 percent), the richest 40 percent would lose and the middle 20 percent would break about even.

If that’s not a progressive tax scheme, what is?