Today a large group of some sixty-five top scientists sent a letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt demanding that he initiate a process to reconsider the so-called Endangerment Finding of 2009.

Regular readers of this blog will recognize the EF as one of the most egregious and preposterous bureaucratic power grabs of all time.  By the EF, EPA purported to "determine" that carbon dioxide -- a colorless, odorless gas that has no known adverse health effects at any concentration you will ever experience and that is the basis for all life on earth -- is a "danger" to human health and welfare.  The so-called science underlying the EF is and always was a joke.  See, for example my post "The 'Science' Underlying Climate Alarmism Turns Up Missing" from September 2016 (and multiple similar posts).  Nevertheless, the EF was used by the Obama administration as the basis for, among other things, its Clean Power Plan, seeking to force the closure of all coal-fired power plants (and ultimately the closure of all power plants involving any fossil fuel).  Just today, a group of about seventeen "blue" states and their environmentalist co-parties filed a brief in the D.C. Circuit (behind pay wall) seeking to compel the Trump administration to reinstate the CPP or something like it, on the grounds that the EF requires the government to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide.  

Here is a link to today's letter.  And here is the full text:

You have pending before you two science-based petitions for reconsideration of the 2009 Endangerment Finding for Greenhouse Gases, one filed by the Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council, and one filed jointly by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Science and Environmental Policy Project.

We the undersigned are individuals who have technical skills and knowledge relevant to climate science and the GHG Endangerment Finding. We each are convinced that the 2009 GHG Endangerment Finding is fundamentally flawed and that an honest, unbiased reconsideration is in order.

If such a reconsideration is granted, each of us will assist in a new Endangerment Finding assessment that is carried out in a fashion that is legally consistent with the relevant statute and case law.

We see this as a very urgent matter and therefore, request that you send your response to one of the signers who is also associated with a petitioner, SEPP. 

Readers here will also recognize that I am serving as a lawyer for one of the Petitioners (the Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council) seeking reconsideration of the EF.  Our group issued a press release this morning simultaneous with the release of the scientists' letter to Administrator Pruitt.  Key points from our press release:

The Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council fully endorses the recommendations of these scientists because recent research has definitively validated that: once certain natural factor (i.e., solar, volcanic and oceanic/ENSO activity) impacts on temperature data are accounted for, there is no “natural factor adjusted” warming remaining to be attributed to rising atmospheric CO2 levels. That is, these natural factor impacts fully explain the trends in all relevant temperature data sets over the last 50 or more years. At this point, there is no statistically valid proof that past increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations have caused what have been officially reported as rising, or even record setting, global average surface temperatures (GAST) . . .  Moreover, additional research findings demonstrate that adjustments by government agencies to the GAST record render that record totally inconsistent with published credible temperature data sets and useless for any policy purpose. . . .  

This scientifically illiterate regulation [based on the EF] will raise U.S. energy prices thereby reducing economic growth and jobs as well as our National Security. . . .  The Electricity Consumers Council therefore, based on this new scientific evidence, must insist that the EPA grant the “very urgent” request of these scientists “that an honest, unbiased reconsideration is in order.”

I won't attempt to list here who all the letter's signers are, but if you go to the link you will see that they are a who's who of the top scientific people active on these issues.  To the extent that credentials count for anything in today's corrupted world, many of them have top degrees and top professorships at top institutions.  

Now, perhaps you have seen the claim that "97% of scientists agree" that human-caused global warming is a crisis, or something like that.  I guess that would have to mean that the alarmist team will shortly produce a responsive letter signed by in excess of 2000 comparably-qualified scientists.  Don't bank on it.  No such group exists.  Yes, there is a substantial government-funded clique of lightweights and charlatans that spend their lives manipulating the world temperature records and putting out fake press releases of "hottest year ever!"  Undoubtedly they can exceed our group in numbers (government dollars buy a lot of loyalty and corruption).  But no such group that could be assembled could remotely match our group of sixty-five for bona fide scientific heft.  If they try to assemble such a group, the contrast of the real scientists versus the lightweights will be immediately apparent.    

And by the way, the signing process for our scientists' letter is still open, and we expect the number of signers to increase over time.  Let the games begin!