FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                              CONTACT: John Donnelly
December 7, 2009                                                                                    (202) 225-2276 

 Burton: EPA Finding Signals Intent To Bypass Congress

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN-05) issued the following reaction to the Environmental Protection Agency's so-called "endangerment finding" that greenhouse gasses are a danger to public health and welfare:

"Today's EPA announcement indicates a realization that Congress will not be able to pass the President’s Cap-and-Trade bill, and so the Administration has been forced to take matters into their own hands.  This ruling is the first step toward, what I believe to be, the dictatorial maneuver of bypassing Congress entirely, and enforcing a cap-and-trade plan that will devastate jobs across America, particularly in my home state of Indiana, which has already been hit hard by the recession.

"Just like many instances of government control, the EPA will first creep in with automobile emissions regulations, and then government bureaucrats will start implementing fines and, perhaps, even legal actions against businesses and industries that emit greenhouse gasses.  Clearly, the President's recent brainstorming “jobs summit” has yielded only more job-killing ideas. 

"With Al Gore and the recently defanged “climate science” community against the ropes, I believe President Obama has orchestrated more of the political theater that he's known for, and timed this announcement to retake the headlines and boost the morale of the Copenhagen climate summit participants.  Not only does the Obama Administration refuse to acknowledge the undermined climate data exposed by the Climategate email scandal, but they ignore the many calls for oversight by using the questionable 'science' as a basis for grasping more control over our nation's economy.

"If the Administration carries out their cap-and-trade plan through today's EPA ruling, then this will be government, not through the democratic process, but by bureaucratic edict.  This is not what America is about."

###