HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0372.148 2024-2026From:
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Hi Ken and Council Members,
1
Sarahlee Kittons
Thursday, September 11, 2025 11:51 AM
Ken Honma
Kierkiewicz, Ashley, Kanealii-Kleinfelder, Matt; Kimball, Heather, Onishi, Dennis; Inaba,
Holeka; Kagiwada, Jennifer, Galimba, Michelle M.; Villegas, Rebecca; Hustace, James;
Council Testimony; Planning Internet Mail; Kalei Kailikini; Claudia; StanclTogether
Hawaii; katrena meeker, Debbie Guanzon; Dan Fisher; Dave DeCleene
Re: National Science Foundation and weather modification
BILL 56.pdf; Happer-Lindzen-EPA-Power-Plants-2023-07-19.pdf
I too am dismayed at the lack of due diligence, instead focusing on the acceptance of ptan2045 which
has definitive narrative based from outside Hawaii sources. If those that wrote this plan who are
influencing so heavily the county council, and are from far and wide, maybe looking at other outside
sources of actions and information warrant some attention.
The State of Florida passed SB 56 to address geoengineering and is now in law. This isn't the only state
addressing this issue and I will continue to research what other states have done their due diligence to
protect the environment and the health of the people. They are laying the foundation for a better way in
our world to come to fruition.
Here also is a document to the EPA from MIT regarding climate.
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Aloha,
Sarahlee Kittons
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On Sep 11, 2025, at 10:17 AM, Ken Honma <kenh.7553(@9mail.com>
wrote: Co
Council Members,
After a recent post council meeting chastisement by one of the County Council members
about peer reviewed only information being accepted by the County Council in regards to
the 2045 general plan, I had to re-evaluate what form of information to provide the County
Council with. The discussion that the Council had just concluded was about climate
change and its effect on the plan.
My previous testimony brought information about the weather modification that the
government is involved in. I was very disappointed that the Committee did not ask about
weather modification otherwise today termed Geoengineering.
One of the important grant providers to "peer review" organizations is the National Science
Foundation (NSF), a government agency. The attached 1965 NSF report entitled "Weather
Modification" provides proof that the government was very interested in t8ismrti. topwo and
o
1 7ef. To:
Ref. Date�EP 1 7 2025_
created an organization specifically dedicated to this investigation, The National Center
For Atmospheric Research or NCAR. It is your responsibility to do your due diligence in this
matter and provide your findings about weather modification advancement today, to the
inhabitants of Hawaii County before your final vote on GP2045. What is the status of
NCAR's work in this area? Are they carrying out atmospheric experiments in our skies? If
so, what specifically are they doing and what impact does it have on the climate? I await
your response to this very pressing issue.
Sincerely,
Ken Honma
ken h.7553(algmail.com P.O. box451 Kurtistown Hi. 8089677553
<ADA319117.pdf>
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2 An act relating to geoengineering and weather
3 modification activities; repealing ss. 403.281,
4 403.291, 403.301, 403.311, 403.321, 403.3,31, 403.341,
5 403.351, 403.361, 403.371, 403.381, 403.391, and
6 403.401, F.S., relating to the definitions, purpose,
7 licensing requirements, applications, proof of
8 financial responsibility requirements, license
9 issuance and discipline provisions, publication of
10 notice of intention to operate requirements, required
11 contents of the notice of intention, publication of
12 the notice of intention requirements, proof of
13 publication requirements, record and reports of
14 operations requirements, provision of emergency
15 licenses, and suspension or revocation of licenses,
16 respectively, of the weather modification law;
17 amending s. 403.411, F.S.; prohibiting certain acts
18 intended to affect the temperature, the weather, or
19 the intensity of sunlight within the atmosphere of
20 this state; increasing civil penalties for violations
21 Hof the geoengineering and weather modification law;
22 requiring that specified moneys be deposited in the
23 Air Pollution Control Trust Fund and used only for
24 specified purposes; authorizing a person who observes
25 a geoengineering or weather modification activity to
26 report such activity; providing construction;
27 requiring the Department of Environmental Protection
28 to establish a method for the intake and screening of
29 such reports; requiring the department to investigate
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30 certain reports; requiring the department to refer
31 reports of observed violations to the Department of
32 Health or the Division of Emergency Management, under
33 certain circumstances; requiring the department to
34 adopt rules; creating s. 403.4115, F.S.; defining
35 terms; requiring an operator of public infrastructure
36 to report certain information monthly to the
37 Department of Transportation; prohibiting the
38 department from expending funds to support certain
39 projects or programs; requiring the department to
40 submit a report to specified entities; requiring the
41 department to incorporate reporting guidelines in
42 certain grant agreements; authorizing the department
43 to adopt rules; amending ss. 253.002, 373.026,
44 373.1501, 373.4598, and 373.470, F.S.; conforming
45 cross-references and provisions to changes made by the
46 act; making technical changes; providing an effective
47 date.
48
49 Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
50
51 Section 1. Sections 403.281, 403.291, 403.301, 403.311,
52 403.321, 403.331, 403.341, 403.351, 403.361, 403.371, 403.381,
53 403.391, and 403.40i, Florida Statutes, are repealed.
54 Section 2. Section 403.411, Florida Statutes, is amended to
55 read:
56 403.411 Geoengineering and weather modification activities
57 prohibited; penalty.-
58 (1) The injection, release, or dispersion, by,any means, of
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59 a chemical, a chemical compound, a substance, or an apparatus
60 into the atmosphere within the borders of this state for the
61 express purpose of affecting the temperature, weather, climate,
62 or intensity of sunlight is prohibited.
63 (2) Any person, including any public or private
64 corporation, who conducts eendiaetiny a geoengineering or weather
65 modification activity in violation of this section commits
67 FaaiEe a €a3-se stat-eFaen ,.: ea�her _ pl4 _,.: fe.v lj:eensey
68 jjhe -w-, , f-__-- to F: , any - . _3at -- r-epe24aa „_, i=eepairred—by t
69 aet, er whe shall eenduet any Wither ..nedifieatlen eper r-atien
70 aftret4-en er axsgenalen of his er—heE lieense, er whe
71 shall�vielate any other previslen e€ this aet, shall be ; .'-, `1
72 e€ a felonyn4:s4efReane3� of the third eeeen4 degree, punishable
73 as provided in s. 775.082 and by a fine not exceeding $100,000;
74 ar S. '�:75 g3; anEj, if a corporation, the officers, directors,
75 or employees of the corporation commit shall be guilty of a
76 felonymisdemeane3� of the third seeenQ degree, punishable by a
77 fine not exceeding $100,000; and, if an aircraft operator or
78 controller, such person commits a felony of the third degree,
79 punishable as provided in s. 775.082 and by a fine not 'exceeding
80 $5,00'0 and up to 5 years in prison .
81 Each such violation is shwa '�e a separate offense.
82 (3) All moneys collected pursuant to this section must be
83 deposited in the Air Pollution Control Trust Fund and used only
84 for purposes of air pollution control pursuant to this chapter.
85 (4)(a) Any person who observes a geoengineering or weather
86 modification activity conducted in violation of this section may
87 report the observed violation to the department online or by
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88 telephone, mail, or e-mail.
89 (b) The department shall establish an e-mail address and an
90 online form for persons to report observed violations pursuant
91 to this subsection. The department shall make the e-mail address
92 and online form publicly accessible on its website.
93 (c) The department shall establish a method for intake and
94 screening of the reports made pursuant to this subsection. The
95 department shall investigate any report that warrants further
96 review to determine whether there are violations of this
97 section.
98 (d) The department shall refer reports of observed
99 violations made pursuant to this subsection to the Department of
100 Health or the Division of Emergency Management, if appropriate.
101 (e) The department shall adopt any rules that are necessary
102 to implement this subsection.
103 Section 3. Section 403.4115, Florida Statutes, is created
104 to read:
105 403.4115 Reporting on geoengineering and weather
106 modification activities on public infrastructure; penalty.
-
107 (1) As used in this section, the term:
108 (a) "Aircraft" means a powered or unpowered machine or
109 device capable of atmospheric flight, except a parachute or
110 other such device used primarily as safety equipment.
ill (b) "Department" means the Department of Transportation.
112 (c) "Public infrastructure" means any public -use airport as
113 that term is defined in s. 332.004.
114 (2)_Beginning on October 1, 2025, all operators of public
115 infrastructure shall report monthly to the department, using a
116 method determined by the department:
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117 (a) The physical presence of any aircraft on public
118 property, including any public infrastructure, equipped with any
119 part, component, device, or the like which may be used to
120 support the intentional emission, injection, release, or
121 dispersion of air contaminants into the atmosphere within the
122 borders of this state when such emissions occur for the express
123 purpose of affecting temperature, weather, climate, or the
124 intensity of sunlight.
125 (b) The landing,.takeoff, stopover, or refueling of an
126 aircraft equipped with the components outlined in paragraph (a)
127 on the physical location of the public infrastructure.
128 (3) The department may not expend any state funds as
129 described in s. 215.31 to support a project or program located
130 on or in support of public infrastructure which is not in
131 compliance with this section until such time as the entity
132 becomes compliant with this section.
133 (4) Upon receipt of the reports required in subsection (2),
134 the department shall submit aggregated reports to the Department
135 of Environmental Protection and the applicable state law
136 enforcement agency in support of the enforcement of s. 403.411.
137 (5) The department shall incorporate reporting guidelines
138 in all grant agreements for public use airports which receive
139 state funds as described in s. 215.31.
140 (6) The department may adopt rules necessary to implement
141 this section.
142 Section 4. Subsection (1) of section 253.002, Florida
143 Statutes, is amended to read:
144 253.002 Department of Environmental Protection, water
145 management districts, Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission,
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146 and Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services; duties with
147 respect to state lands.-
148 (1) The Department of Environmental Protection shall
149 perform all staff duties and functions related to the
150 acquisition, administration, and disposition of state lands,
151 title to which is or will be vested in the Board of Trustees of
152 the Internal Improvement Trust Fund. However, upon the effective
153 date of rules adopted pursuant to s. 373.427, a water management
154 district created under s. 373.06.9 shall perform the staff duties
155 and functions related to the review of any application for
156 authorization to use board of trustees -owned submerged lands
157 necessary for an activity regulated under part IV of chapter 373
158 for which the water management district has permitting
159 responsibility as set forth in an operating agreement adopted
160 pursuant to s. 373.046(4). The Department of Agriculture and
161 Consumer Services shall perform the staff duties and functions
162 related to the review of applications and compliance with
163 conditions for use of board of trustees -owned submerged lands
164 under authorizations or leases issued pursuant to ss. 253.67-
165 253.75 and 597.010 and the acquisition, administration, and
166 disposition of conservation easements pursuant to s. 570.71.
167 Unless expressly prohibited by law, the board of trustees may
168 delegate to the department any statutory duty or obligation
169 relating to the acquisition, administration, or disposition of
170 lands, title to which is or will be vested in the board of
171 trustees. The board of trustees may also delegate to any water
172 management district created under s. 373.069 the authority to
173 take final agency action, without any action on behalf of the
174 board, on applications for authorization to use board of
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175 trustees -owned submerged lands for any activity regulated under
176 part IV of chapter 373 for which the water management district
177 has permitting responsibility as set forth in an operating
178 agreement adopted pursuant to s. 373.046(4). This water
179 management district responsibility under this subsection is
180 i54�lell be subject to the department's general supervisory
181 authority pursuant to s. 373.026(6) s. '�;-. The board of
182 trustees may also delegate to the Department of Agriculture and
183 Consumer Services the authority to take final agency action on
184 behalf of the board on applications to use board of trustees-
185 owned submerged lands for any activity for which that department
186 has responsibility pursuant to ss. 253.67-253.75, 369.25,
187 369.251, and 597.010. However, the board of trustees shall
188 retain the authority to take final agency action on establishing
189 any areas for leasing, new leases, expanding existing lease
190 areas, or changing the type of lease activity in existing
191 leases. Upon issuance of an aquaculture lease or other real
192 property transaction relating,to aquaculture, the Department of
193 Agriculture and Consumer Services must send a copy'of the
194 document and the accompanying survey to the Department of
195 Environmental Protection. The board of trustees may also
196 delegate to the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission the
197 authority to take final agency action, without any action on
198 behalf of the board, on applications for authorization to use
199 board of trustees -owned submerged lands for any activity
200 regulated under ss. 369.20 and 369.22.
201 Section S. Subsection (6) of section 373.026, Florida
202 Statutes, is amended to read:
203 373.026 General powers and duties of the department. -The
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204 department, or its successor agency, shall be responsible for
205 the administration of this chapter at the state level. However,
206 it is the policy of the state that, to the greatest extent
207 possible, the department may enter into interagency or
208 interlocal agreements with any other state agency, any water
209 management district, or any local government conducting programs
210 related to or materially affecting the water resources of the
211 state. All such agreements shall be subject to the provisions of
212 s. 373.046. In addition to its other powers and duties, the
213 department shall, to the greatest extent possible:
214 Egg —Eery — either independently ,J:n ...tw
215 an --rnmental -tea � am of st id•-eeear- ,
�-;ease^ - - � =_= -1'
216 and eiEpe9=!Rieiq#R#4eP Rn44n the field ef weather
217
218 Section 6. Subsections (1) and (9) of section 373.1501,
219 Florida Statutes, are amended to read:
220 373.1501 South Florida Water Management District as local
221 sponsor.-
222 (1) As used in this section and s. 373.026(7) e-
223 3:�3 926 (S) , the term:
224 (a) "C-111 Project" means the project identified in the
225 Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project, Real Estate
226 Design Memorandum, Canal 111, South Miami -Dade County, Florida.
227 (b) "Department" means the Department of Environmental
228 ,Protection.
229 (c) "District" means the South Florida Water Management
230 District.
231 (d) "Kissimmee River Restoration Project" means the project
232 identified in the Project Cooperation Agreement between the
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233 United States Department of the Army and the South Florida Water
234 Management District dated March 22, 1994.
235 (e) "Pal -Mar Project" means the Pal -Mar (West Jupiter
236 Wetlands) lands identified in the Save Our Rivers 2000 Land
237 Acquisition and Management Plan approved by the South Florida
238 Water Management District on September 9, 1999 (Resolution 99-
239 94).
240 (f) "Project" means the Central and Southern Florida
241 Project.
242 (g) "Project component" means any structural or operational
243 change, resulting from the restudy, to the Central and Southern
244 Florida Project as it existed and was operated as of January 1,
245 1999.
246 (h) "Restudy" means the Comprehensive Review Study of the
247 Central and Southern Florida Project, for which federal
248 participation was authorized by the federal Water Resources
249 Development Acts of 1992 and 1996 together with related
250 congressional resolutions and for which participation by the
251 South Florida Water Management District is authorized by this
252 section. The term includes all actions undertaken pursuant to
253 the aforementioned authorizations which will result in
254 recommendations for modifications or additions to the Central
255 and Southern Florida Project.
256 (i) "Southern Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed
257 Project" means the area described in the Critical Restoration
258 Project Contract C-9906 Southern Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem
259 Watershed Project Addition/Imperial River Flowway and approved
260 by the South Florida Water Management District on August 12,
261 1999.
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262 (j) "Water Preserve Areas" means those areas located only
263 within Palm Beach and Broward counties that are designated as
264 Water Preserve Areas, as approved by the South Florida Water
265 Management District Governing Board on September 11, 1997, and
266 shall also include all of those lands within Cell II of the East
267 Coast Buffer in Broward County as delineated in the boundary
268 survey prepared by Stoner and Associates, Inc., dated January
269 31, 2000, SWFWMD #10953.
270 (k) "Ten Mile Creek Project" means the Ten Mile Creek Water
271 Preserve Area identified in the Central and Southern Florida
272 Ecosystem Critical Project Letter Report dated April 13, 1998.
273 (9) Final agency action with regard to any project
274 component subject to s. 373.026(7) (b) s. 3'7.9268` (b) shall be
275 taken by the department. Actions taken by the district pursuant
276 to subsection (5) may shall not be considered final agency
277 action. A Anry petition for formal proceedings filed pursuant to
278 ss. 120.569 and 120..57 requires shall require a hearing under
279 the summary hearing provisions of s. 120.574, which is shall be
280 mandatory. The final hearing under this section must eAall be
281 held within 30 days after receipt of the petition by the
282 Division of Administrative Hearings.
283 Section 7. Paragraph (c) of subsection (10) of section
284 373.4598, Florida Statutes, is amended to read:
285 373.4598 Water storage reservoirs.-
286 (10) FUNDING.-
287 (c) Notwithstanding s. 373.026(7)(b) s. 3:73.^26'8 "'-` or
288 any other provision of law, the use of state funds is authorized
289 for the EAA reservoir project.
290 Section 8. Paragraph (a) of subsection (6) of section
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291 373.470, Florida Statutes, is amended to read:
292 373.470 Everglades restoration.-
293 (6) DISTRIBUTIONS FROM SAVE OUR EVERGLADES TRUST FUND.-
294 (a) Except as provided in paragraphs (d) and (e) and for
295 funds appropriated for debt service, the department shall
296 distribute funds in the Save Our Everglades Trust Fund to the
297 district in accordance with a legislative appropriation and s.
298 373.026(7)(b) s. ''".^" (8)(b). Distribution of funds to the
299 district from the Save Our Everglades Trust Fund shall be
300 equally matched by the cumulative contributions from the
301 district by fiscal year 2019-2020 by providing funding or
302 credits toward project components. The dollar value of in -kind
303 project design and construction work by the district in
304 furtherance of the.comprehensive plan and existing interest in
305 public lands needed for a project component are credits towards
306 the district's contributions.
307 Section 9. This act shall take effect July 1, 2025.
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William Hanner
Professor of Physics, Emeritus
Princeton University
Richard Lindzen
Professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Emeritus
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
July 19, 2023
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
EPA Docket Center ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2023-0072 FRL-8536-02-OAR
Mail Code 28221T
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NE
Washington, D.C.
Re: Proposed Fossil Fuel Power Plant Rule: "New Source Performance Standards for
Greenhouse Gas Emissions From New. Modified. and Reconstructed Fossil Fuel -Fired
Electric Generating Units: Emission Guidelines for Greenhouse Gas Emissions From
Existing Fossil Fuel -Fired Electric Generating Units: and Repeal of the Affordable Clean
Energy Rule" (the "Proposed Rule")
Dear Administrator Reagan,
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Environmental Protection Agency's
("EPA") Proposed Rule.1
We are career physicists who have specialized in radiation physics and dynamic heat
transfer for decades, subjects directly relevant to the global warming debate. Each of us has
published over 200 peer -reviewed papers on the science of climate or closely related subjects. Our
curricula vitae are attached in the appendix.
At the outset, these comments are organized around two Supreme Court opinions.
First, "`scientific knowledge' ... must be derived by the scientific method." Daubert v.
Merrell Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 593 (1993).
Second, an agency rule is "arbitrary and capricious if the agency ... entirely failed to
consider an important aspect of the problem" and "the relevant data." Motor Vehicle
Manufacturers Association of the United States, Inc. v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance
Company, 463 U.S. 29,43 (1983) ("State Farm"). (It similarly is a major violation of the scientific
method not to consider all relevant data, as elaborated below.)
We demonstrate below that (1) EPA failed to consider critically important aspects and data
concerning CO2, fossil fuels and climate change, and (2) EPA relied on numerous studies that
violate the scientific method. As a result, the Proposed Rule, which could eliminate fossil fuel
188 Fed. Reg. 33,240 (May 23, 2023).
electricity plants that provide 61% of electricity in the United States,' will be disastrous for the
country, for no scientifically justifiable reason.
Table of Contents
I. Summary.........................................................................................................................3
A. EPA Failed to Consider Important Aspects of Climate Change ............................3
B. EPA and Numerous Studies It Relies On Do Not Use the Scientific Method ........ 5
H. The EPA's Proposed Fossil Fuel Power Plant Rule.......................................................5
III. Scientific Theories Are Determined by the Scientific Method, Validating Theoretical
Predictions with Observations, Not by Fabricated,, Falsified or Omitted
Contradictory Data, Models That Do Not Work, Government Opinion, Consensus or
PeerReview.....................................................................................................................7
IV. Unscientific Method Commonly Used by the EPA and Studies....................................8
A. Fabricated, Falsified, and Omitted Contradictory Data........................................8
B. Models That Do Not Work......................................................................................8
C. Government Opinion...............................................................................................9
D. Consensus.................................................................................................................9
E. Peer Review............................................................................................................10
V. The EPA's Proposed Rule Failed to Consider Four Critically Important Aspects and
RelevantData................................................................................................................10
A. EPA Failed to Consider CO2's Essential -to -Life Social Benefits .........................10
1. CO2 Is Essential to Food and Thus to Life on Earth.................................10
2. More CO2, Including CO2 from Fossil Fuels, Produces More Food ........ 11
3. More CO2 Increases Food in Drought -Stricken Areas .............................12
B. EPA Failed to Consider Fossil Fuels' Enormous Social Benefits .........................13
.1. Burning Fossil Fuels Creates More CO2 and Thus More Food................13
2. Fossil Fuels Are Essential to Making Fertilizers and Pesticides That Feed
theWorld....................................................................................................13
3. Fossil Fuels Are the Most Reliable, Efficient and Low -Cost Source of
Energy.........................................................................................................16
C. EPA Failed to Consider the Disastrous Consequences of Net Zeroing Fossil Fuels
andCO2..................................................................................................................17
D. EPA Failed to Consider the Reliable Science That Proves There Is No Risk That
Fossil Fuels and CO2 Will Cause Catastrophic Global Warming and Extreme
Weather..................................................................................................................17
1. The Models Predicting Catastrophic Warming and Extreme Weather
Fail the Key Scientific Test: They Do Not Work......................................17
2. 600 Million Years of Data Show Today's 420 ppm CO2 Level Is Low.....22
3. 600 Million Years of CO2 and Temperature Data Contradict the Theory
That High Levels of CO2 Will Cause Catastrophic Global Warming ...... 23
4. Atmospheric CO2 Is Now "Heavily Saturated," Which in Physics Means
More CO2 Will Have Little Warming Effect.............................................26
' 88 Fed. Reg. 33253.
2
VI. EPA's Proposed Rule Relies on Studies That Violate Scientific Method, and Thus
HaveNo Scientific Value...............................................................................................29
A. All Never Considered the Four Critically Important Aspects and Relevant Data.
30
B. The USGCRP Fourth National Climate Assessments(NCA4)............................30
1. Heat Waves ............... .......... :....................................................................... 30
2. Hurricanes..................................................................................................34
3. Wildfires.....................................................................................................36
4. Sea Level.....................................................................................................38
C. Reliance on Defective Models................................................................................38
D. Reliance on IPCC Government Opinions.............................................................38
E. IPCC Studies Are Government Opinions Providing No Scientific Knowledge...39
F. RIA Section 4 Benefit Analysis's Reliance on the February 2021 IWG SCC
Estimate of the Social Cost of Carbon..................................................................41
G. The EPA Endangerment Findings........................................................................43
H. NAS's Valuing Climate Damages..........................................................................44
VII. Conclusions ............................ :....................................................................................... 45
I. Summary.
A. EPA Failed to Consider Important Aspects of Climate Chanee.
In our opinion, the EPA's Proposed Rule entirely fails to follow the State Farm mandate
(and that of the scientific method) to consider each important aspect and relevant data on the issue
of'climate change.
A cornerstone of modern administrative law, the Supreme Court's State Farm decision
defines as arbitrary and capricious an agency rulemaking where, inter alia, "the agency has ...
entirely failed to consider an important aspect of the problem, offered an explanation for its
decision that runs counter to the evidence before the agency." 463 U.S. at 42.
Time and again, courts have applied State Farm's principles to invalidate agency rules
where the agency failed to consider an important aspect of the problem, or cherry -picked data to
support a preordained conclusion. See, e.g., Dept of Homeland Sec. v. Regents of the Univ. of
Calif., 140 S. Ct. 1891, 1913 (2020) (an agency official "`entirely failed to consider ... [an]
important aspect of the problem."' and that "omission alone renders ... [the official's] decision
arbitrary and capricious"); Am. Clinical Lab yMss'n v. Becerra; 40 FAth 616,625 (D.C. Cir. 2022)
(agency rule deemed arbitrary and capricious where "the agency, without adequate explanation,
exempted a sizable portion of the laboratories covered by the statute from data reporting
requirements"); Nad.. Lifeline Assn v. FCC, 921 F.3d 1102, 1112 (D.C. Cir. 2019) (agency rule
deemed arbitrary and capricious where agency departed from its "prior forbearance policy without
reasoned explanation and failing to consider key aspects of the program").
The Proposed Rule flunks this basic requirement by entirely failing to consider several
important aspects of climate change and relevant data: 1
First, Carbon Dioxide Is Essential to Life Social Benefits. Carbon dioxide is essential to
life, creating via the process of photosynthesis the food we eat and the oxygen we breathe. Without
carbon dioxide, there would be no human life or other life on earth.
3
Further, increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere create more food for people
worldwide, including more food for people in drought -stricken areas. To illustrate, increases in
carbon dioxide over the past two centuries since the Industrial Revolution, from about 280 parts
per million (ppm) to about 420 ppm,3 caused an approximate 20% increase in the food available
to people worldwide, as well as increased greening of the planet and a benign warming in
temperature.
Second, Fossil Fuel's Extraordinary Social Benefits. Fossil fuels also have extraordinary
social benefits. They are indispensable in creating nitrogen fertilizer and pesticides that feed nearly
half the world; their combustion releases carbon dioxide and thus increases plant growth via
increased CO2 fertilization effect, creating more food worldwide; and they provide the most
reliable, efficient and low-cost energy for many uses, including the production of 61% of the
nation's electricity.
Third, The Consequences of Net Zero Are Disastrous. Corresponding to these benefits are
the disastrous consequences that would flow from "net zeroing" fossil fuels and carbon dioxide
and eliminating the enormous social benefits they provide, including the disastrous consequences
of eliminating 61% of the nation's electricity provided by fossil fuel power plants.
The number of people worldwide who are moderately or severely food insecure is 2.3
billion, including over 900 million who face severe food insecurity.' Each ton of carbon dioxide
emissions eliminated reduces the amount of food available worldwide. "Net zero" would reduce
carbon emissions by over 40 gigatons (Gt) every year, and consequently would proportionally
reduce the amount of food produced.
As to fossil fuels, one of us (Happer) has made clear that without the "use of inorganic
[nitrogen] fertilizers" derived from fossil fuels, the world simply "will not achieve the food supply
needed to support 8.5 to 10 billion people,"5 resulting in widespread starvation.
Fourth, The Scientific Method Proves There Is No Risk That Fossil Fuels and Carbon
Dioxide Will Cause Catastrophic Warming and Extreme Weather.
• All of the models that predict catastrophic global warming fail the key test of the
scientific method: they grossly overpredict the warming versus actual data.
• 600 million years of data prove that today's CO2 level of 420 parts per million (ppm)
is very low, not high.
• 600 million years of data show that higher levels of CO2 do not cause or even correlate
with higher temperatures.
'CO2 levels cited in this comment vary between 400 and 420, depending on when, between
1900 and present day, the levels were measured according to the cited material.
' UNITED NATIONS, THE STATE OF FOOD SECURITY AND NUTRITION IN THE WORLD, xvii
(2022).
I William Happer, et al., Nitrous Oxide and Climate, CO2 COALITION (Nov. 10, 2022), at
39 (emphasis added).
0
• Even at today's relatively low levels, atmospheric CO2 is now "heavily saturated," in
physics terms, meaning that additional increases in atmospheric CO2 can have little
warming effect.
B. EPA and Numerous Studies It Relies On Do Not Use the Scientific Method.
As a corollary to the arbitrary and capricious rule under State Farm, an agency must use
reliable scientific methods to reach its conclusions. As Daubert emphasized, "any and all scientific
testimony or evidence admitted ... [must be] not only relevant, but reliable." Id. at 589.
Here the EPA relies on a number of studies, cited and analyzed below, that do not use the
scientific method and therefore are not reliable. Instead, all use what we call the "Unscientific
Method": consensus, peer review, government opinion from the International Panel on Climate
Change ("IPCC"), models that do not work, falsifying data by omitting contradictory data, and
fabrication of supporting data. None of this produces scientific knowledge; only the scientific
method does.
In science, omitting contradictory data is such an egregious violation of the scientific
method that it is deemed "falsification.i6 It is illustrated by what can be called the "world is flat
analysis," which involves cherry -picking a limited set of favorable data and then failing to consider
contradictory evidence. Under this method, the theory that the world is flat is true if one uses only
eyesight data and does not consider the voluminous other evidence that it is round.
The Unscientific Method of analysis, relying on consensus, peer review, government
opinion, models that do not work, cherry -picking data and omitting voluminous contradictory data,
is commonly employed in these studies and by the EPA in the Proposed Rule. None of the studies
provides scientific knowledge, and thus none provides any scientific support for the Proposed
Rule.
For all of these reasons, the Proposed Rule should not be adopted.
II. The EPA's Proposed Fossil Fuel Power Plant Rule.
The EPA "is proposing five separate actions under section I11 of the Clean Air Act
("CAA") addressing greenhouse gas ("GHG") emissions from fossil fuel —fired electric generating
units ("EGUs")."
The EPA asserts, "[e]levated concentrations of GHGs are and have been warming the
planet, leading to changes in the Earth's climate including changes in the frequency and intensity
of heat waves, precipitation, and extreme weather events; rising seas; and retreating snow and
ice."8
Further, the EPA alarmingly states, "CO2 concentration of 415 ppm is already higher than
at any time in the last 2 million years," and asserts "elevated concentrations endanger our health
6 DAVID GOODSTEIN, ON FACT AND FRAUD 135 (2010) ("Falsification is... changing or
omitting data or results.").
88 Fed. Reg. 33,240.
$ 88 Fed. Reg. 33,249.
by affecting our food and water sources, the air we breathe, the weather we experience, and our
interactions with the natural and built environments."
Key "science" cited to support the Proposed Rule is listed at 88 Fed. Reg. 33,249-50 and
in the Regulatory Impact Analysis.
1. EPA.
• 2009 Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for GHGs Under Section
202(a) of the CAA (December 15, 2009).10
• 2016 Endangerment Findings and Cause or Contribute Findings for GHG
Emissions From Aircraft (August 15, 2016).11'
• Climate Change and Social Vulnerability in the United States: A Focus on Six
Impacts (2021). Climate Change and Social Vulnerability in the United States: A
Focus on Six Impacts (epa.gov).
• Framework for Evaluating Damages and Impacts ("FIEDI").
2. U.S. Global Change Research Program's ("USGCRP").
• 2017-2018 Fourth National Climate Assessment ("NCA4").
• 2016 The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A
Scientific Assessment.
3. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ("IPCC").
2018 Global Warming of 1.5 °C.
• 2019 Climate Change and Land.
• 2019 Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.
• 2021 IPCC Sixth Assessment Report ("AR6").
4. Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA), which is significantly based on the Interagency
Working Group, "Technical Support Document: Social Cost of Carbon, Methane,
and Nitrous Oxide Interim Estimates under Executive Order 13990" ("IWG SCC
Estimate").
5. National Academy of Sciences ("NAS").
• 2017 Valuing Climate Damages: Updating Estimation of the Social Cost of Carbon
Dioxide.
• 2016 Attribution of Extreme Weather Events in the Context of Climate Change.
• 2019 Climate Change and Ecosystems Assessments.
9 88 Fed. Reg. 33,249-50 (footnotes omitted).
10 74 Fed. Reg. 66,496.
11 81 Fed. Reg. 54,422.
6. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's ("NOAA") annual State of the
Climate reports published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society,
most recently in August 2022.
The EPA warns, based on these assessments: "The most recent information demonstrates
that the climate is continuing to change in response to the human -induced buildup of GHGs in the
atmosphere. These recent assessments show that atmospheric concentrations of GHGs have risen
to a level that has no precedent in human history..., and that these elevated concentrations
endanger our health by affecting our food and water sources, the air we breathe, the weather we
experience, and our interactions with the natural and built environments.""
As examples, the EPA cites:
• 'more intense hurricanes and more frequent and intense storms of other types and
heavy precipitation."
• "The rate of sea level rise during the 20th Century was higher than in any other century
in at least the last 2,800 years."
• "heatwaves and heavy precipitation are more frequent and more intense, along with
increases in agricultural and ecological droughts in many regions."13
The EPA concludes: "These scientific assessments, EPA analyses, and documented
observed changes in the climate of the planet and of the U.S. present clear support regarding ...
the importance of GHG emissions mitigation."14
We demonstrate below that many of the key studies egregiously violate scientific method,
and thus cannot be used as "scientific" justification for the Proposed Rule.
III. Scientific Theories Are Determined by the Scientific Method, Validatinu Theoretical
Predictions with Observations. Not by Fabricated. Falsified or Omitted
Contradictory Data, Models That Do Not Work, Government Opinion. Consensus or
Peer Review.
Scientific Method. Reliable scientific knowledge is determined by the scientific method,
where theoretical predictions are validated or invalidated by observations. If the theoretical
predictions do not work, the theory is rejected and not used. Agreement with observations is the
measure of scientific truth.
Scientific progress proceeds through the interplay of theory and observation. Theory
explains observations and predicts- what will be observed in the future. Observations anchor
understanding and weed out theories that don't work. This has been the scientific method for more
than three hundred years.
Professor Richard Feynman, a Nobel Laureate in Physics, incisively explained the
scientific method:
12 88 Fed. Reg. 33,250.
13 88 Fed. Reg. 33,249-50 (footnotes omitted and emphasis added).
14 88 Fed. Reg. 33,252.
[W]e compare the result of [a theory's] computation to nature, ...
compare it directly with observations, to see if it works. If it
disagrees with experiment, it is wrong. In that simple statement is
the key to science. 15
Thus, the scientific method is very simple and very profound: Does theory work with
observations? If not, it is rejected and not used.
IV. Unscientific Method Commonly Used by the EPA and Studies.
A. Fabricated, Falsified, and Omitted Contradictory Data.
Since theories are tested with observations, fabricating data, falsifying data, and omitting
contradictory facts to make a theory work is an egregious violation of the scientific method.16
Richard Feynman stated this fundamental principle of the scientific method:
If you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you
think might make it invalid — not only what you think is right about
it.... Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be
given, if you know them.17
In Albert Einstein's words: "The right to search for truth implies also a duty; one must not
conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true."18 One of us (Lindzen) observes that
"[m]isrepresentation, exaggeration, cherry -picking, or outright lying pretty much covers all the so-
called evidence" marshalled in support of the theory of catastrophic global warming caused by
fossil fuels and carbon dioxide, and of the urgent need to achieve Net Zero fossil fuel and other
human CO2 emissions. 19
B. Models That Do Not Work.
Models are a type of theory; they predict physical observations. The scientific method
requires models to be tested by observations to see if they work. If a model's prediction disagrees
with observations of what it purports to predict, it is wrong and never used as science. The models
supporting the climate -crisis narrative simply do not align with observations of the phenomena
they are supposedly designed to predict. Instead, they consistently overestimate the warming
effect of CO2 emissions, often predicting two or three times more warming than has been observed.
15 RICHARD FEYNMAN, THE CHARACTER OF PHYSICAL LAW 150 (1965).
16 DAviD GOODSTEIN, ON FACT AND FRAUD 135 (2010). "Fabrication is making up data or
results," "falsification is ... changing or omitting data or results."
17 RICHARD FEYNMAN, SURELY YOU'RE JOKING, MIL FEYNMAN! 311-312 (1985).
18 ALBERT EINSTEIN, THE ULTIMATE QUOTABLE EINSTEIN 480 (2010).
19 Richard Lindzen, Global Warming for the Two Cultures, GLOBAL WARMING POL'Y
FOUND. (2018), at 10.
On models, we understand that the legal standard is essentially the same as the scientific
method: "An agency's use of a model is arbitrary if that model bears no rational relationship to the
reality it purports to represent."20
C. Government Opinion.
Nobel physicist Richard'Feynman put it unambiguously:
No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific
principles.2i
The importance of the scientific principle that government does not determine science was
chillingly underscored recently in Sri Lanka and earlier in Russia under Stalin.
"Ideologically driven government mandates on agriculture have
usually led to disaster;" one of us (Happer) explained. "The world
has just witnessed the collapse of the once bountiful agricultural
sector of Sri Lanka as a result of government restrictions on mineral
[nitrogen] fertilizer.""
Earlier in Russia, Stalin made Trofim Lysenko the czar of Russian biology and agriculture.
His false biology, which rejected well -established genetic science, prevailed for 40 years in the
Soviet Union because Lysenko gained dictatorial control, providing one of the most thoroughly
documented and horrifying examples of the politicization of science. Lysenko was strongly
supported by "scientists" who benefitted from his patronage. Millions died because of his ruthless
campaign against genetic science in agriculture.23
D. Consensus.
What is correct in science is not determined by consensus, but by experiment and
observations. Historically, the consensus of scientists has often turned out to be wrong, and many
of the greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with consensus. To quote
the profoundly true observation of Michael Crichton:
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of
scoundrels.... If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it
isn't consensus. 24
2° Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. v. EPA, 139 F.3d 914, 923 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (internal
quotation marks omitted). See also Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1999) as to trial
evidence, where the Supreme Court upheld the exclusion of a tire expert and his model predicting
a tire made by the Kumho Tire Company caused a fatal car crash because, among other things,
"the expert could not say whether the tire had traveled more than 10, or 20, or 30, or 40, or 50
thousand miles," id. at 154.
21 RICHARD FEYNMAN, THE MEANING OF IT ALL 57 (1998).
22 Happer, et al., supra, at 39 (emphasis added).
23 William Happer, Chapter 1 in MICHAEL GouGH, POLITICIZING SCIENCE 29-35 (2003).
21 Crichton, "Aliens Cause Global Warming," Caltech Michelin Lecture (Jan. 17, 2003).
W
E. Peer Review.
Peer review can be helpful in many areas of science, but it does not determine scientific
validity. In our decades of personal experience in the field, we have been dismayed that many
distinguished scientific journals now have editorial boards that further the agenda of climate -
change alarmism rather than objective science. Research papers with scientific findings contrary
to the dogma of climate calamity are commonly rejected by peer reviewers, many of whom fear
that their research funding will be cut if any doubt is cast on the looming climate catastrophe.
Journal editors have been fired for publishing papers that go against the party line of the climate -
alarm establishment.25
We also have been dismayed by the trillions of dollars that have been spent on one-sided
research predicting catastrophic climate change. Dr. Harold Lewis, a distinguished physics
professor, bluntly described this reality:
The global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars
driving it ... has corrupted so many scientists ... It is the greatest
and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long
life as a physicist,"
As a result, we agree with the Supreme Court: "peer review and publication ... does not
necessarily correlate with reliability." Daubert, 509 U.S. at 593. Peer -reviewed climate science
publications should not be viewed as reliable science and do not determine scientific validity.
Agreement of theoretical predictions with observation or experiment is the only touchstone of truth
in science.
V. The EPA's Proposed Rule Failed to Consider Four Critically Important Aspects and
Relevant Data.
There is overwhelming scientific evidence that CO2 and fossils fuels provide enormous
social benefits for the poor, the United States, people worldwide and future generations; that
reduction to Net Zero would be a worldwide disaster; and that there is no significant risk that CO2
and fossils fuels will cause catastrophic warming and extreme events. EPA fails to consider all of
this evidence, in violation of State Farm and the scientific method.
A. EPA Failed to Consider CO2's Essential -to -Life Social Benefits.
1. CO2 Is Essential to Food and Thus to Life on Earth.
CO2 is the basis for nearly all life on earth.27 We owe our very existence to green plants
that, through photosynthesis, convert CO2 and water to carbohydrates and oxygen with sunlight.
Land plants get the carbon they need from the CO2 in the air. Other essential nutrients —water,
nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, etc. --come from the soil. In turn, livestock depend on the
availability of green plants to consume, so that humans can consume the livestock. Without CO2,
there would be no photosynthesis, no food and no human or, other life.
25 See also Richard Lindzen, Climate of Fear, WALL STREET JOURNAL (Apr. 12, 2006).
26 Harold Lewis, October 6, 2010 resignation letter to the American Physical Society.
27 See, e.g., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Climate
Change Reconsidered II.• Biological Impacts (2014), at 1.
10
2. More CO2, Including CO2 from Fossil Fuels, Produces More Food.
A major social benefit of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere is the indisputable science that
it increases the amount of food that plants produce through what is known as CO2 "fertilization."
More CO2 means more food. Sylvan Wittwer, the father of agricultural research on this topic,
emphasized the enormous benefits of rising CO2worldwide:
The rising level of atmospheric CO2 could be the one global natural
resource that is progressively increasing food production and total
biological output, in a world of otherwise diminishing natural
resources of land, water, energy, minerals, and fertilizer.... The
effects know no boundaries and both developing and developed
countries are, and will be, sharing equally.... [for) the rising level of
atmospheric CO2 is a universally free premium."
A graphic illustration of the response of plants to increases in CO2 is shown below. Dr.
Sherwood Idso grew Eldarica (Afghan) pine trees with increasing amounts of CO2 in experiments,
starting with an ambient CO2 concentration of 385 ppm. He showed what happens when CO2 is
increased from 385 ppm to 535 ppm, 685 ppm and 835 ppm over 10 years:29
28 Quoted in NIPCC, Climate Change Reconsidered II.- Fossil Fuels (2019), at 322-23
29 Craig Idso, Increased Plant Productivity. The First Key Benefit of Atmospheric CO2
Enrichment, MASTER REsouRCE (Apr. 21, 2022), https://www.masterresource.org/carbon-
dioxide/increased-plant-productivity-the-first-key-benefit-of-atmospheric-co2-enrichment/; CO2
COALITION, https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/CO2 3.jpg.
11
Thousands of experimental results demonstrate that more CO2 increases the amount of food
that a large variety of plants produce.30 This "fertilization" effect varies significantly by type of
plant, but Dr. Craig Idso has shown that a 300 ppm increase in CO2 resulted in an average increase
of 46%.31
This implies that each 100 ppm increase of CO2"fertilization" results in a 15.3% (46%/3)
increase, on average, in food supply worldwide.32
Dr. Idso reported, "[s]ince the start of the Industrial Revolution, it can be calculated ... that
the 120-ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration increased agricultural production per unit
land area" for various crops ranging from 28% to 70%.33 Using -more recent data on the 140 ppm
increase of CO2 from 280 ppm in 1750 to 420 ppm today and the formula above, people worldwide
benefited by a 21% increase in agricultural productivity since 1750. And doubling CO2 from 400
to 800 ppm would result in an additional increase of about 60% (4 x 15.3%).
What if the Net Zero fossil fuel and CO2 policy was in effect in 1750 and CO2 did not rise
from 280 ppm to 420 ppm? There would be 21% less food worldwide.
3. More CO2 Increases Food in Drought -Stricken Areas.
Another enormous social benefit of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere is that drought -
stricken areas will have more food. In regions of the world suffering from drought, more CO2
means there will be more food, because increasing CO2 lessens water lost by plant transpiration:
One of the principal benefits plants receive from elevated levels of
atmospheric CO2 is an increase in their water use efficiency. At
higher CO2 levels, plants generally do not open their leaf stomatal
pores as wide as they do at lower CO2 concentrations. The result is
a reduction in most plants' rates of water loss by transpiration ....
Athigher atmospheric CO2 concentrations, plants need less water to
produce the same — or an even greater — amount of biomass.34
None of these enormous social benefits of CO2 essential to life and the voluminous data
supporting them was considered by the EPA in the Proposed Rule.
30 See, e.g., NIPCC, Climate Change Reconsidered IP Biological Impacts (2014); Craig
Idso, "What Rising CO2 Means For Global Food Security" CO2 Coalition (2019); Plant Growth
Database, CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF CARBON DIOXIDE AND GLOBAL CHANGE,
http://www.0O2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/dry_subject.php.
31 Craig Idso, The Positive Externalities of Carbon Dioxide, CO2 COALITION (2013), at 3,
(discussed in GREGORY WRIGHTSTONE, INCONVENIENT FACTS 19 (2017)).
32 Dr. Idso advised there is a linear relationship between CO2 levels and the amount of food
produced for most plants through 800 ppm. (Personal communication).
33 Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Climate Change
Reconsidered IT Biological Impacts (2014), at 322.
34 Craig Idso, What Rising CO2 Means for Global Food Security, CO2 COALITION (2019),
at 13. See also CRAIG IDSO & SHERWOOD IDSO, THE MANY BENEFITS OF ATMOSPHERIC AND CO2
ENRICHMENT (2011).
12
B. EPA Failed to Consider Fossil Fuels' Enormous Social Benefits.
1. Burning Fossil Fuels Creates More CO2 and Thus More Food.
As explained, increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere can substantially increase the amount
of food available to people worldwide. Fossil -fuel CO2 has the same power to create more food
through more photosynthesis.35
2. Fossil Fuels Are Essential to Making Fertilizers and Pesticides That
Feed the World.
In the early 1900s, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch developed a process and method of
production by which natural gas and atmospheric nitrogen oxide (N2) could be converted into
ammonia (NH3), an extraordinarily effective fertilizer for growing plants. The importance of fossil
fuel -derived nitrogen fertilizers cannot be overstated. It is "estimated that nitrogen fertilizer now
supports approximately half of the global population" by itself." The importance of these
fertilizers is shown in the following chart:37
—corn —wheat —barley —hay —oats —rye ---• NFertilizer
8 14
7
6
oa
°5
3
2 4
V_
3
2
1
1850
1870 1990 1910 1930 1950 1970 1990 2010
12
10
1✓
d
8 .�
.y
d
W
6 Z
4
2
2030
Crop yields relative to yields in 1866 for corn, wheat, barley, grass hay, oats and
rye in the United States. Also shown from the year 1961 is the annual mineral
nitrogen fertilizer (in Tg = megatonnes) used in agriculture. Crop yields are from
35 "Contrary to the claims of proponents of the Green New Deal and Net Zero, fossil fuels
are the greenest fuels... uniquely among energy sources, fossil fuel use emits CO2, which is the
ultimate source of the elemental building block, carbon, found in all carbon -based life, i.e.,
virtually all life." Indur M. Goklany, Fossil Fuels are the Greenest Energy Sources, CO2
COALITION (Aug. 30, 2022).
36 Hannah Ritchie, Max Roser and Pablo Rosado, How Many People Does Synthetic
Fertilizer Feed?, OUR WORLD IN DATA (Nov. 7, 2017).
37 Happer et al., supra, at 39, fig. 14.
13
the USDA, National Statistical Service [621 and nitrogen fertilizer usage is from
the Food Agriculture Organization statistical database [58]. Note the high
correlation between yields and the use of nitrogen fertilizer.
The chart shows a remarkable increase in crop yields after the widespread use of fossil
fuel -derived nitrogen fertilizer began around 1950, compared to crop yields from 1866 to 1950.
The following chart shows more specifically what happened after the widespread use of
nitrogen fertilizer started around 1950, with a threefold increase in cereal crop production between
1950 and 2020:38
3.0
2.5
0
5 2.0
4
U 1.5
U 1.0
0.5
0.0.F.
1950
-120
r 100
:80
- 60
W
- 40 z
20
0
1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030
Annual world production of nitrogen fertilizer used in agriculture (blue, in Tg) and
world production of all cereal crops (orange, in gigatonnes) from 1961 to 2019.
Data from reference [581. The threefold increase of cereal crop yields wads largely
due to the use of mineral nitrogen fertilizer. Additional contributors to the
increased yields were other mineral fertilizers like phosphorus and potassium,
better plant varieties like hybrid corn, increasing concentrations of atmospheric
CO2, etc.
38Id. at 38, fig. 13.
14
World population supported by synthetic nitrogen •
fertilizers '
Best estimates project that just over half of the global population could be sustained without
reactive nitrogen fertilizer derived from the Haber -Bosch process.
O Relative
7 bil lion
6 billion
5 billion
4 bil lion
3 billion
2 billion
1 billion
0
1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2015
Population fed by
synthetic nitrogen
fertilizers
Population
supported without
synthetic nitrogen
fertilizers
Source: Erisman et at(2008); Smil(2002); Stewart(2005) OurWorldlnData.org/fertilizers• CC BY
The proportion of the world's population that depends for life on nitrogen fertilizer is
shown in the chart above.39
This is not mere theory. Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa in April 2021 banned "the
importation and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and ordered the country's 2 million
farmers to go organic."40 The result was disastrous. "Its rice production has dropped more than
50%, while domestic rice prices have increased more than 80%."41 This is a real -life warning of
the worldwide disaster that would result from eliminating fossil fuels.
Further, many pesticides (and countless other chemicals in everyday use) are produced
from gas and oil, including chlorobenzene, neonicotinoids, and pyrethroids. About one billion
pounds of pesticides are used each year in the United States to control weeds, insects, and other
Pests.
The use of pesticides has resulted in a range of benefits, including increased food
production and reduction of insect -borne disease. Those benefits would be greatly diminished and
more expensive if nitrogen derived from fossil fuels were unavailable.
s9 Ritchie, et al., supra.
40 Helen Raleigh, Sri Lanka Crisis Shows the Damning Consequences of Western Elites
Green Revolution, FEDERALIST (July 15, 2022).
41 Id.
IR
Thus, eliminating fossil fuels would be disastrous by itself for eliminating fertilizers and
pesticides that the world's food supply depends on, and without which there would be massive
human starvation.
3. Fossil Fuels Are the Most Reliable, Efficient and Low -Cost Source of
Energy.
The third extraordinary social benefit of fossil fuels is that they provide low-cost energy
and resulting jobs. Affordable, abundant fossil fuels have given ordinary people the sort of
freedom, prosperity and health that was reserved for kings and queens in ages past.
The following chart of the GDP per person for the last 2,000 years powerfully illustrates
what has happened:42
°i 4000
0
r4
2000
C
1 400 800 1200 1600 2000
Moreover, the following chart shows the powerful relationship between rising CO2 and
rising GDP:43
42 Rupert Darwall, Climate Noose: Business, Net Zero and the IPCC's Anticapitalism
GLOBAL WARMING POLICY FOUNDATION (2020), at 21.
43 NIPCC, CLIMATE CHANGE RECONSIDERED II: FOSSIL FUELS 4 (2019).
16
Relationship between world GDP and CO2
emissions
35,000
c
zolo
C. EPA Failed to Consider the Disastrous Consequences of Net Zeroing Fossil
Fuels and COz.
The rule also fails to consider the overwhelming scientific evidence that reducing COz
emissions to Net Zero and eliminating fossil fuels would be disastrous to millions of people
worldwide by destroying these social benefits, including:
• eliminating nitrogen fertilizer that is essential to feeding nearly half the world;
• reducing the amount of food available worldwide, especially in drought -stricken areas;
• eliminating the most reliable, efficient and low-cost source of energy;
• eliminating the source of 61% of the nation's electricity.
D. EPA Failed to Consider the Reliable Science That Proves There Is No Risk
That Fossil Fuels and COz Will Cause Catastrophic Global Warming and
Extreme Weather.
1. The Models Predicting Catastrophic Warming and Extreme Weather
Fail the Key Scientific Test: They Do Not Work.
The EPA explained the model it used to make all its estimates justifying this Proposed
Rule, the
increased deaths due to increasing temperatures, as well as climate -
driven changes in air quality, transportation impacts due to coastal
flooding resulting from sea level rise, increased mortality from
wildfire emission exposure and response costs for fire suppression
is called the Framework for Evaluating Damages and Impacts ("FrEDI"). The EPA further
explained FrEDI "uses climate modeling outputs from the fifth phase of the Coupled Model
17
Intercomparison Project" ("CMIP5").44 The IPCC is the dominant source of the models used by
everybody analyzing climate change, in our experience.
The CMIP models do not reliably predict temperatures and "bears no rational relationship
to the reality they purport to represent." Columbia Falls Aluminum, 139 Fad at 923. They and
FrEDI, therefore, should never be used under both scientific. and legal standards.
The importance of the scientific and legal failure of the CMIP models underlying all of the
EPA's Proposed Rule cannot be overemphasized. There is no scientific basis for the catastrophic
projections of extreme weather45 being used as justification for extreme action to essentially close
down fossil fuel electricity generating plants.46
Here are the details:
CMIP5. John Christy, Ph.D., Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of
Alabama, applied the scientific method to CMIPS's 102 predictions of temperatures from 1979 to
2016 by models from 32 institutions.
He explained he used "the traditional scientific method in which a claim (hypothesis) is
made and is tested against independent information to see if the claim can be sustained," and
produced the following chart:47
44 88 Fed. Reg. 33,252; EPA Technical Documentation on the Framework for
Evaluating Damages and Impacts (FrEDI) (Oct. 2021), at 8. n.8, technical-documentation-on-
the-framework-for-evaluating-damages-and-impacts_maintext.pdf (epa.gov).
4s The wildfire, tornado, hurricane, sea level rise and other extreme weather predictions are
also scientifically fallacious for using the "world is flat method" of analysis of cherry -picking
limited periods of time and omitting contradictory data from a longer period of times, demonstrated
in Part V.
46 See, e.g., 88 Fed. Reg. 33,249-52.
47 John Christy, House Comm. Science, Space and Technology (Mar. 29, 2017), at 3, 5.
11"
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
'C
CA
0.2
0.0
.0.2
2006
At the bottom, the blue, purple and green lines show the actual reality —temperature
observations against which the models' predictions were tested.
The dotted lines are 102 temperature "simulations" (predictions) made by the models from
32 institutions for the period 1979-2016.
The red line is the consensus of the models, their average.
In our opinion and his, the graph clearly shows 101 of the 102 predictions by the models
(dotted lines) and their consensus average (red line) fail miserably to predict reality.48 Focusing
on the red consensus line, Dr. Christy concluded, and we agree:
When the `scientific method' is applied to the output from climate
models of the IPCC ARS, specifically the bulk atmospheric
temperature trends since 1979 (a key variable with a strong and
obvious theoretical response to increasing GHGs in this period), .. .
the consensus of the models Fred linel fails the test to match the real -
world observations by a significant margin. As such, the average of
the models is considered to be untruthful in representing the recent
decades of climate variation and change, and thus would be
inUpropriate for use in predicting future changes in the climate or
related policy decisions.49
" The one model that closely predicted the temperatures actually observed is a Russian
model and is the only model that should be used in science. However, the IPCC did not use it but
used the models that it should have rejected.
49Id. at 13 (emphasis added).
ILI
Thus, in our opinion, the models that produced the 101 predictions fail the Feynman test
under scientific method. They do not "work," and "bears no rational relationship to the reality
they purport to represent." Columbia Falls Aluminum, 139 F.3d at 923. Thus, CMIP5 provides
no reliable scientific evidence for FrEDI and the Proposed Rule.
Nor can EPA fix the problems by using CMIP6. We examined the analysis of the CMIP6
by Professor Steven Koonin, Ph.D., a Cal -Tech physicist, professor at New York University and
author of Unsettled (2021) which devoted an entire chapter to "Many Muddled Models."50 He
concluded, and we agree:
One stunning problem is that ... the later generation of [CMIP]
models are actually more uncertain than the earlier one[s].
The CMIP6 models that inform the IPCC's upcoming AR6 [Climate
Change reports] don't perform any better than those of CMIP5.51
He elaborated on CMIP6's failure using the scientific method in detail:
• "An analysis of 267 simulations run by 29 different CMIP6 models created by 19
modeling groups around the world shows that they do a very poor job [1 ] describing
warming since 1950 and ... [2] underestimate the rate of warming in the early
twentieth century."52
• "Comparisons among the [29] models [show] ... model results differed
dramatically both from each other and from observations ... [and] disagree wildly
with each other."53
• "One particularly jarring failure is that the simulated global average surface
temperature ... varies among models ... three times greater than the observed value
of the twentieth century warming they're purporting to describe and explain."54
• As to the early twentieth century warming when CO2 levels only increased from
300 to 310 ppm, "strong warming [was] observed from 1910 to 1940. On average,
the models give a warming rate over that period of about half what was actually
observed. That the models can't reproduce the past is the big red flag — it erodes
confidence in their projections of future climate."55
Thus, the CMIP6 models also fail the fundamental test under scientific method: they do
not work and do not provide reliable scientific evidence for the Proposed Rule.
50 STEVENKOONIN,UNSETTLED (2021).
51 Id. at 87, 90 (emphasis added).
52 Id. at 90.
53 Id.
54 Id. at 87.
55 Id. at 88, 95.
20
The EPA's Proposed Rule fails to consider the overwhelming scientific evidence that
FrEDI based on CMIP5 cannot pass the basic test of scientific and legal method and therefore
should never be used. Professor Koonin concluded, and we agree:
The uncertainties in modeling of both climate change and the consequences of future
greenhouse gas emissions make it impossible today to provide reliable, quantitative
statements about relative risks and consequences and benefits of rising greenhouse gases
to the Earth system as a whole, let alone to specific regions of the planet.16
Moreover, the temperature swings that humans experience daily in non -tropical regions are
far greater than the changes that models relied upon by EPA predict will occur over years or
decades. We cope well with the larger fluctuations, and there is no reason for alarm or concern
about much smaller ones. As one of us wrote:
Indeed, the 1.2 degree Celsius global temperature change in the past
120 years, depicted as alarming is only equivalent to the thickness
of the "Average" line in [the figure] below. As the figure shows,
the difference in average temperature from January to July in these
major cities ranges from just under ten degrees in Los Angeles to
nearly 30 C degrees in Chicago. And the average difference
between the coldest and warmest moments each year ranges from
about 25 C degrees in Miami (a 45 degree Fahrenheit change) to 55
C degrees in Denver (a 99 degree Fahrenheit change).57
Temperature Changes People Know How To Handle
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57 Richard Lindzen and John Christy, The Global Mean Temperature Anomaly Record,
CO2 COALITION (Dec. 4, 2020), at 12.
21
There is no scientifically proven risk that CO2 and fossil fuels will cause catastrophic global
warming, and the Proposed Rule should not be adopted.
2. 600 Million Years of Data Show Today's 420 ppm CO2 Level Is Low.
The EPA, like many, asserts that today's CO2 level is dangerously high and engages in
what science deems falsifying data by cherry -picking a short period of geological time to prove its
point: "CO2 concentration of 415 ppm is already higher than at any time in the last 2 million years,"
and "elevated concentrations endanger our health by affecting our food and water sources, the air
we breathe, the weather we experience, and our interactions with the natural and built
environments.""
Two million years raises the obvious scientific question, what happened over geological
time? The EPA omits and fails to consider the contradictory data over 600 hundred million years
that prove CO2 levels today are near a record low:"
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The omitted hundreds of millions of years of data prove that:
• CO2 levels were more than 2,000 ppm for over half of the last 600 million years.
• Today's 420 ppm is not far above the minimal level when plants die of CO2
starvation, around 150 ppm, when all human and other life would die from lack of
food.
• CO2 levels ranged from a high of over 7,000 ppm—almost 20 times higher than
today's 420 ppm, to a low of 200 ppm, close to today's low 420 ppm.
58 88 Fed. Reg. 33,249-50 (footnotes omitted).
59 GREGORY WRIGHTSTONE, INCONVENIENT FACTS 16 (2017).
`Ia
• The often highly emphasized 140 ppm increase in CO2 since the beginning of
the Industrial Age is trivial compared to CO2 changes over the geological
history of life on Earth.
What about temperatures?
3
3. 600 Million Years of CO2 and Temperature Data Contradict the
Theory That High Levels of CO2 Will Cause Catastrophic Global
Warming.
The chart below shows 600 million years of CO2 levels and temperature data.60 It shows
an inverse relationship between CO2 and climate temperatures during much of Earth's history over
the last 600 million years.
Higher levels of CO2 correlated with lower temperatures and vice versa. Although the data
are based on various proxies, with the attendant uncertainties, they are good enough to demolish
the argument that atmospheric CO2 concentrations control Earth's climate and the theory that fossil
fuels and CO2 will cause catastrophic global warming. They will not.
The blue line shows CO2 levels. The red line shows temperature.
Geological Timescale, Concentration of CO2 and Temperature fluctuations
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23
Specifically, the chart shows:
• When CO2 was at a record high at about 7,000 ppm, temperatures were at a near -
record low.
• CO2 levels were low when temperatures were at the highest they have ever been,
about 60 million years ago.
• CO2 concentrations and temperatures are usually inversely related over 600 million
years. For hundreds of millions of years, temperatures were low when CO2 levels
were high, and temperatures were high when CO2 levels were low.
• CO2 levels have been relatively low for the last 300 million years and have been
declining from 2,800 ppm to today's 420 ppm over the last 145 million years.
• Temperatures have been higher than today over most of the 600 million years and
life flourished (but not in Ice Ages).
Neither contemporary observations nor the geological record support computer modeling -based
claims that CO2 is the "control knob" on the earth's climate. There have been tremendous
fluctuations in global temperature, including ice ages and warm periods, when there was negligible
use of fossil fuels. A thousand years ago, during the medieval warm period (about 850-1250
A.D.), Greenland supported Norse farmers who grew crops such as barley, which cannot be grown
there now because of the cold. There followed the Little Ice Age that lasted from about 1250-
1850 A.D.; glaciers have been retreating ever since then. None of these fluctuations, far more
dramatic than anything predicted by the studies on which EPA relies, were caused by, or had any
correlation with, changing CO2 levels.
The IPCC provided this chart about the Medieval Warm Period (950-1250) and the Little
Ice Age (1450-1850):61
61 IPCC, CLIMATE CHANGE: THE IPCC SCIENTIFIC ASSESSMENT 203 (1990). We have
confirmed this IPPC data from many sources.
24
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raga poncd
LAN ice age
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The IPCC noted:
The late tenth to early thirteenth centuries (about AD 950-1250)
appear to have been exceptionally warm ... This period is known as
the Medieval Climatic Optimum.... This period of widespread
warmth is notable in that there is no evidence that it was
accompanied by an increase of ,greenhouse gases. (Emphasis
added).12
The little warming we observe now is a continuation of the 300-year warming that is a
recovery from the depths of the Little Ice Age, as shown in the following chart:63
62 Id. at 202.
63 WRIGHTSTONE, supra, at 34.
25
Figure 1-24: Greater than 300 years of warming in central England
from 1695 — 20_17
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16
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Note that the blue line at the bottom shows that humans did not start emitting any
significant amount of CO2 until after 1900, and only a trivial amount since the beginning of the
Industrial Age from about 1750 to 1950.
No scientist familiar with radiation transfer denies that more carbon dioxide is likely to
cause some surface warming. But the warming would be small and benign. In fact, history shows
that warmings of a few degrees Celsius —which extended growing seasons —have been good for
humanity. The golden age of classical Roman civilization occurred during a warm period as did
the first great civilizations during the Bronze Age in the Minoan Warm Period.
Thus, applying the scientific method to the 600 million years of omitted and not considered
data contradicts the EPA's theory that fossil fuels and CO2 will cause catastrophic global warming.
The theory does not agree with the facts, and the scientific method requires the theory must be
rejected. For this reason alone, there is no risk CO2 and fossil fuels will cause catastrophic global
warming.
4. Atmospheric CO2 Is Now "Heavily Saturated," Which in Physics
Means More CO2 Will Have Little Warming Effect.
Both of us have special expertise in radiation transfer, the prime mover of the greenhouse
effect in Earth's atmosphere. Radiation physics explains the effect of adding CO2 to the
atmosphere.
CO2 becomes a less effective greenhouse gas at higher concentrations because of what in
physics is called "saturation." Each additional 50 ppm increase of CO2 in the atmosphere causes
26
a smaller and smaller change in "radiative forcing," or in temperature. The saturation is shown in
the chart below.64
Figure 1-3: Less global warming for each additional 50 parts -
per -million -by -volume of CO2 concentration
1.2
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This means that from now on, our emissions from burning fossil fuels will have little
impact on global warming. We could double atmospheric CO2 to 840 ppm and have little warming
effect.
Saturation also explains why temperatures were not catastrophically high over the hundreds
of millions of years when CO2 levels were 10 to 20 times higher than they are today, shown in the
chart above.
Further, as a matter of physics, saturation explains why reducing the use of fossil fuels to
Net Zero would have a trivial impact on climate, also contradicting the theory it is urgently
necessary to eliminate fossil fuel CO2 to avoid catastrophic global warming. Adding more CO2 to
the atmosphere slightly decreases the amount of long -wave infrared radiation that goes to space,
called the "flux." The details are shown in the graph below.65
The blue curve shows the heat energy the Earth would radiate to space if our atmosphere
had no greenhouse gases or clouds. The magnitude is measured in Watts per square meter (W/m2).
Without greenhouse gases, the total heat loss of 394 W/m2 would soon cool the Earth's surface to
64 Id. at 7.
65 William Happer & Williaam Van Wijngaarden, Dependence of Earth's Thermal
Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases, ARXIV (June 8, 2020), 2006.03098.pdf
(arxiv.org).
27
16' F, well below freezing. Most life would end at these low temperatures. Thus, we should be
grateful for greenhouse warming of the Earth.
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500 1000 1500
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2000
The iaeeed black curve below the blue curve shows how much less the Earth radiates
infrared radiation to space with the current concentration of greenhouse gases: water vapor (H20),
nitrous oxide (N20), carbon dioxide (CO2), ozone (03), and methane (CH4). Because of these
greenhouse gases, the Earth radiates 277 W/m2 rather than 394 W/m2 to space, 70% (277/394) of
what it would radiate with no greenhouse gases.
What would happen if CO2 concentrations were doubled from 400 ppm to 800 ppm?
• without the greenhouse effect, 394 W/m2 would be radiated to space;
• with the greenhouse effect, only 277 W/m2 is radiated to space;
• if CO2 were doubled from 400 ppm to 800 ppm, only 3 W/m2 more warming would
result. (See the red curve.) That means a temperature increase of a trivial amount,
less than 10 C (20 F).
Since CO2 at today's level is "saturated," for this reason alone there is no risk that the
continued use of fossil fuels and even a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will cause catastrophic global
warming.
It bears noting that CO2 is not nearly as potent a greenhouse substance as water vapor and
clouds (especially cirrus clouds). A radiation -blocking effect of only about 3 watts/m2 could easily
also be produced by changes in the size or height of cloud cover on any given day. This is a
complex system, and the idea that one variable, globally average temperature, is changed primarily
by one thing, manmade CO2, is baseless. As one of us (Lindzen) has explained:
The climate system consists of two turbulent fluids interacting with
each other, [ocean and atmosphere]. They are on a rotating planet
that is differentially heated by the sun. A vital constituent of the
atmospheric component is water in the liquid, solid, and vapor
phases, and the changes in phase have vast energetic ramifications.
PU
The energy budget of this system involves the absorption and
remission of about 200 watts per square meter. Doubling CO2
involves a two percent perturbation to this budget. So do minor
changes in clouds, ocean circulations, and other features, and such
changes are common. In this complex multifactor system, what is
the likelihood that the climate (which itself consists of many
variables and not just globally averaged temperature anomalies) is
controlled by a two percent perturbation in the energy budget due to
just one of the numerous variables, namely CO2? Believing this is
pretty close to believing in magic.66
In summary, the EPA's Proposed Rule fails to consider these four critically important
aspects of climate change —the extraordinary social benefits of CO2, the extraordinary social
benefits of fossil fuels, the disastrous consequences of Net Zeroing them, and the reliable science
that proves there is no risk fossil fuels and CO2 will cause catastrophic global warming —singly or
together, renders the EPA's Proposed Rule arbitrary and capricious under State Farm (as well as
an egregious violation of the scientific method by omitting relevant contradictory data).
VI. EPA's Proposed Rule Relies on Studies That Violate Scientific Method, and Thus
Have No Scientific Value.
The Proposed Rule relies on a number of studies that involve egregious violations of
scientific method, and thus have no scientific value. As a result, they contaminate the Proposed
Rule and there is no need to analyze the other studies the Proposed Rule relies on.
We focus on the following:
• Framework for Evaluating Damages and Impacts ("FrEDI"), already covered in Part
IV.D.1.
• U.S. Global Change Research Program's ("USGCRP") Fourth National Climate
Assessment 2017-2018 ("NCA4").
• EPA 2009 Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for GHGs Under section
202(a) of the CAA (December 15, 2009).67
• All IPCC studies (Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) (2022), Warming of 1.5 °C (2018),
Climate Change and Land (2019), Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate
(2021)).
• The primary basis of the Regulatory Impact Analysis ("RIA") section 4 Benefits
Analysis, the Interagency Working Group, "Technical Support Document: Social Cost
of Carbon, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide Interim Estimates under Executive Order
13990" ("February IWG SCC Estimate").
• National Academy of Sciences ("NAS") Valuing Climate Damages: Updating
Estimation of the Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide (2017).
66 Richard Lindzen, "Straight Talk About Climate Change," Acad. Quest. (2017), p. 432.
67 74 Fed. Reg. 66,496.
29
A. All Never Considered the Four Critically Important Aspects and Relevant
Data.
All of the above studies failed to scientifically consider the extensive science and data on
the critically important social benefits of carbon dioxide, the critically important social benefits of
fossil fuels, the disastrous social consequences of reducing them to Net Zero, and the scientific
proof there is no risk carbon dioxide and fossil fuels will cause catastrophic global warming. In
science, omitting data that contradicts a scientific theory is an egregious violation of the scientific
method.
Accordingly, for this reason alone, the studies have no scientific value and contribute no
scientific knowledge. Their use in the Proposed Rule contaminates it scientifically.
B. The USGCRP Fourth National Climate Assessments (NCA4).
Thirteen federal agencies comprise the U.S. Global Change Research Program
("USGCRP") and are required to prepare a National Climate Assessment ("NCA") about every
five years. Their 4th NCA was published in two volumes: Vol. I "Climate Science Special Report"
(CSSR) (2017) and Vol. II: "Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States" (2018). They
are preparing their 5th National Climate Assessment now for release later this year.
The Proposed Rule cites NCA4 warnings about extreme weather multiple times: "The
NCA4 ... evaluated a number of impacts specific to the U.S. Severe drought and outbreaks of
insects," "Wildfires have burned more than 3.7 million acres in 14 of the 17 years between 2000
and 2016," "The rate of sea level rise during the 20th Century was higher than in any other century
in at least the last 2,800 years," "Droughts, floods, storm surges, wildfires, and other extreme
events stress nations and people through loss of life, displacement of populations, and impacts on
livelihoods."G8
The Proposed Rule asserts repeatedly that the nation faces extreme weather events caused
by fossil fuel CO2 and other greenhouse gas ("GHG") emissions, and therefore that GHG
emissions from power plants must be dramatically reduced. For example, "The increased
concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere and the resulting warming have led to more frequent
and more intense heat waves and extreme weather events," "Climate change is also expected to
cause more intense hurricanes," and "more intense and larger wildfires.s69
Shockingly, the NCA4 CSSR fabricated, falsified and omitted contradictory data on, for
example, heat waves, hurricanes, wildfires and sea levels.
1. Heat Waves.
The CSSR reported "Record Warm Daily Temperatures Are Occurring More Often" with
the chart below in its Executive Summary creating the misleading appearance that temperatures
are going through the roof-."
6s 88 Fed. Reg. 33,250-51.
69 88 Fed. Reg. 33,243, 33,249.
70 NCA4 CSSR at 19, fig ES.S.
30
Record Warm Daily Temperatures Are Occurring More Often
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Figure ES.5: Observed changes in the occurrenceof remrd-sefling daily temperatures in the contiguous United States.
Red bars indicate a year with more daily record highs than daily record lows, while blue bars Indicate a year with more
record lows than highs. The height of the bar indicates the ratio of record highs to lows (red) or of record lows to highs
(blue). For example, a ratio of 2:1 fora blue bar means that there were twice as many record daily lows as daily record
highs thatyear. (Figure source: NOAAINCEI). From Figure 6.5in Chapfer6.
This chart does not actually show "daily temperatures." Instead, it shows a "ratio' of daily
record highs to lows —a number that appears designed to create the impression that temperatures
are steadily rising.
Daily temperatures were buried on page 190 of the CSSR report, in a chart that contradicts
the Executive Summary chart. The spiked lines show yearly values, and the dark line shows the
daily average temperatures over the last 120 years.71
71 NCA4 CSSR at 190, fig. 6.3.
31
u_
:-. 104
2 L
102
CL
E
9U) 100
4
E
98
1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020
It shows that:
• the average warm temperature today is about the same as it was in 1900;
• the warmest temperatures are not occurring more often; and
• not surprisingly, the hottest temperatures occurred during the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.
The EPA graph below confirms there is nothing out of the ordinary about recent heatwaves,
showing an index of heat waves from 1890 to 2020, again showing the hottest temperatures were
during the Dust Bowl:72
72 EPA, U.S. Annual Heat Wave Index 1895-2015 (2016), fig. 3,
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-heat-waves.
32
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1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
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Below is a chart that Dr. John Christy prepared showing the number of days of daily
maximum temperatures above 100' F and 105' from 1895 to 2015. Days with temperatures of at
least 105' F peaked in the,1920s and 1930s.73
7s US Extreme High Temperatures Chart, DR. Roy SPENCER, US-extreme-high-
temperatures-1895-2017 jpg (3000x2250) (drroyspencer.com).
33
Average per station (1124 USHCN Stations) 2895.2017
Number of days daily Maximum temperature above 100'F and 1.057
m
18 NosigniflrantTrmds.
11 of 12 hottest Ve
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Thus, the NCA4 CSSR's Executive Summary stating, "Record Warm Daily Temperatures Are
Occurring More Often" and its ratio chart are termed fabrications by science.74 Frankly, it is
appalling that the thirteen federal agencies tharmake up the USGCRP would rely upon and publish
such a falsehood in a National Climate Assessment.
worse:
2. Hurricanes.
The USGCRP's Third National Climate Assessment in 2014 asserts hurricanes are getting
Key Message 8. The intensity, frequency and duration of North
Atlantic hurricanes, as well as the frequency of the strongest
(Category 4 and 5) hurricanes, have all increased since the early
1980s.75
The report supports that statement with the graph below purporting to show an alarming
increase in the strength of North Atlantic hurricanes, measured by what is called the Power
Dissipation Index ("PDI"). The graph shows two sets of data from 1970 to 2010, with a sharp
upward trend in the black line when the two are combined:76
74 DAVIDGOODSTEIN, Orr FACT AND FRAUD 135 (2010) ("Fabrication is making up data or
results.").
71 Id. at 115 (emphasis added).
76 Id. at 40, fig. 2.23.
34
Observed Trends in Hurricanes Power Dissipation
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Here again, the USGCRP has created the misleading appearance of a dangerous trend by
what science deems falsifying data by cherry -picking data from a very short period of time, here,
1970-2010, and failing to consider volumes of contradictory data.
The USGCRP contradicts itself with data buried deep in the Third NCA, Appendix 3,
which states expressly:
There has been no significant trend in the global number of tropical
cyclones nor has any trend been identified in the number of U.S.
land -falling hurricanes. Id. at 769 (footnotes omitted and emphasis
added).
The NCA4 CSSR nevertheless repeats the same false science:
Human activities have contributed substantially ... to the observed
upward trend in North Atlantic hurricane activity since the 1970s.77
Thus, both the USGCRP's Third and Fourth NCA fabricated, falsified, and omitted and
failed to consider contradictory data, which, in science, corrupts them both and means that they
should never be cited as science in the Proposed Rule.
77 Id. at 118 (footnote omitted).
35
3. Wildfires.
The USGCRP's NCA4 Volume II presents an alarming chart purporting to show a huge
increase in the number of acres burned since 1984:78
0
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12
10
s
6
4
2
0
1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
Also, the "Key Finding 6" of NCA4 CSSR states that the incidence of large forest fires in
the West has increased since the early 1980s:
The incidence of large forest fires in the western United States and
Alaska has increased since the early 1980s (high confidence) and is
proiected to further increase in those regions as the climate warms,
with profound changes to certain ecosystems (medium confidence).
(Emphasis added).79
This is another example of the USGCRP doing what science deems as falsifying data by
cherry -picking a very short period of time-1980 onward —and not considering and omitting
contradictory data from a longer period of relevant time.
The National Interagency Fire Center ("NIFC") used to provide data going back to 1926.
The NIFC removed all the data before 1983 from their website in March 2021. Why? That data
showed that the burned area has been declining, with more than a 75% reduction since their peak
78 USGCRP, 4TH NATIONAL CLIMATE ASSESSMENT, VOL. H, IMPACTS, RISKS, AND
ADAPTATION INTHEU.S., at App. 5, 1508 (2018).
79 Id. at 249.
36
in the 1920s and 1930s—even though CO2 has been increasing. Looking at contradictory omitted
data before 1984, it shows the United States now is faring much better than in the past:80
so
40
0
30
E
20
10
0
United States Wildfire Burn Acreage by Year
1926-2022
ENO Qa N N 000 �R R y0 yM , C ,9 �N �0D0 {9 9 1 Da pM3I � ONE pN� pull M pN pV 1 Q M 0 �9 fNV
Of N N QMi G1 CII Gf GY CIl N N OI Of OI Of Lint N GI CI Clf N Gf OI OL O O o O
Data Source: National Interacgency Fire Center (NIFC)
Similarly, the total number of wildfires in the United States has dropped enormously since
the 1930s.81
30DAM
250,000
V 200,000
0
U
� L50,000
9
3 100,000
50,000
0
United States Wildfire Count by Year
1926-2022
e1 e1 et A e1 e9 A e1 e1 e4 '1 eL 'I e1 e4 '1 A e1 PI A '1 PI '1 Fl ei N N N N N N N N
Data Source: National Interacilency Fire Center (NIFC)
80 U.S. Wildfires, CLIMATE AT A GLANCE, https://climateataglance.com/climate-at-a-
glance-u-s-wildfires/.
81 Id.
37
Thus, there is no long trend of increased wildfires. Rather, to the contrary, there is a long-
term trend of decreasing wildfires when the omitted contradictory data is considered as scientific
method requires.
4. Sea Level.
The Proposed Rule cites the NCA4's assertion, "The rate of sea level rise during the 20th
Century was higher than in any other century in at least the last 2,800 years."82
We agree with fellow physics professor Steven Koonin's analysis in "A Deceptive New
Report On Climate" on sea levels by the NCA4 CSSR in the Wall Street Journal (Nov. 2, 2017).
He singled out the CSSR for what science deems falsifying data by cherry -picking data on this
issue and omitting contradictory data.
The CSSR cited a sea level rise in two recent decades, but omitted data showing a similar
sea level rise earlier in the century.
The report ominously notes that while global sea level rose an
average 0.05 inch a year during most of the 20th century, it has risen
at about twice that rate since 1993. But it fails to mention that the
rate fluctuated by comparable amounts several times during the 20th
century. The same research papers the report cites show that recent
rates are statistically indistinguishable from peak rates earlier in the
20th century, when human influences on the climate were much
smaller. The report thus misleads by omission. ... Such data
misrepresentations violate basic scientific norms.83
Thus, the scientific method shows that there is no risk that CO2 and fossil fuels will cause
increased damage from rising sea levels. Sea levels may rise and cause damage, but if that occurs
it will have nothing to do with increases in CO2.
C. Reliance on Defective Models.
NCA4 Volumes I and II use the defective models of climate change demonstrated above
more than 300 times.S4 In science, defective models are rejected, not used. This is yet another
reason why NCA4 has no scientific value.
D. Reliance on IPCC Government Opinions.
NCA4 Volumes I and II rely on IPCC findings over 300 times. As demonstrated next, the
IPCC findings are merely government opinions and therefore haveno scientific value.
The Proposed Rule's reliance on the USGCRP's NCAs and other USGCRP reports
corrupts the scientific basis of the Proposed Rule. It would be arbitrary and capricious to use them
in the Proposed Rule under State Farm.
82 88 Fed. Reg, 33,250.
83 ra
sa See, e.g.; CSSR Chapter 4, Climate Models, Scenarios, and Projections, at 133-160.
M.
E. IPCC Studies Are Government Opinions Providing No Scientific Knowledge.
The Proposed Rule and RIA cite and rely on IPCC findings extensively.85 Unknown to
most, two IPCC rules require that IPCC governments control what IPCC reports as "scientific"
findings on CO2, fossil fuels and manmade climate change; not scientists. IPCC governments
meet behind closed doors and control what is published in its Summaries for Policymakers
("SPMs") detailed below, which controls what is published in full reports.
The picture above shows government delegates (not scientists) voting on what to include
in the Summary for Policymakers, which the Lysenko tragedy underscores should never be
considered as science. 86
Deliberation by politically designated officials is not how scientific knowledge is
determined, as the Lysenko experience chillingly underscores.
The two IPCC rules are:
IPCC SPM Rule No. 1: All Summaries for Policymakers (SPMs)
Are Approved Line by Line By Member Governments.
IPCC Fact Sheet: How does the IPCC approve reports? `Approval'
is the process used for IPCC Summaries for Policymakers (SPMs).
Approval signifies that the material has been subject to detailed,
85 Global Warming of 1.5°C (2018), Climate Change and Land (2019), Special Report on the
Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (2019), Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). Climate
Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and
Vulnerability. 88 Fed. Reg. 33,250.
16 Donna Laframboise, US Scientific Integrity Rules Repudiate the UN Climate Process,
NOFRAKKINGCONSENSUS.COM (Jan. 29, 2017).
39
line -by-line discussion, leading to agreement among the IPCC
member countries, in consultation with the scientists responsible
for drafting the report.87
Since governments control the SPMs, they are merely government opinions. Therefore,
they have no value as reliable science.
What about the thousands of pages in the IPCC reports? A second IPCC rule requires that
everything in an IPCC published report must be consistent with what the governments agree to in
the SPMs about CO2 and fossil fuels. Any drafts the independent scientists write are rewritten as
necessary to be consistent with the SPMs.
IPCC Reports No. 2: Government SPMs Override Any
Inconsistent Conclusion Scientists Write for IPCC Reports
IPCC Fact Sheet: "`Acceptance' is the process used for the full
underlying report in a Working Group Assessment Report or a
Special Report after its SPM has been approved.... Changes ...are
limited to those necessary to ensure consistency with the Summary
for Policymakers."88
IPCC governments' control of full reports using Rule No. 2 is poignantly demonstrated by
the IPCC's rewrite of the scientific conclusions reached by independent scientists in their draft of
Chapter 8 of the IPCC report Climate Change 1995, The Science of Climate Change ('1995
Science Report').
The draft by the independent scientists concluded:
No study to date has positively attributed all or part (of the climate
warming observed,) to (manmade) causes.
None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we
can attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of
increases in greenhouse gases.89
However, the government -written SPM proclaimed the exact opposite as to human
influence:
The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on
global climate.90
87 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Principles Governing IPCC Work, the
Procedures for the Preparation, Review, Acceptance, Adoption, Approval and Publication of
IPCC Reports, Appendix A Sections 4.44.6,
htWs•//www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/FS ipcc approve.pdf (emphasis added).
18 IPCC Fact Sheet, supra (emphasis added).
89 Frederick Seitz, A Major Deception on Climate Warming, WALL STREET JOURNAL (June
12, 1996).
90 1995 Science Report SPM, at 4 (emphasis added).
.s
What happened to the independent scientists' draft? IPCC Rule No. 2 was applied, and
their draft was rewritten to be consistent with the SPM in numerous ways:
• Their draft language was deleted.
• The SPM's opposite language was inserted in the published version of Chapter 8 in
the 1995 Science Report, on page 439: "The body of statistical evidence in chapter
8 ... now points towards a discernible human influence on global climate."
• The IPCC also changed "more than 15 sections in Chapter 8 of the report ... after
the scientists charged with examining this question had accepted the supposedly
final text."91
As to the full IPCC, reports, hundreds of world -class scientists draft some very good
science. What to do? Use a presumption that anything in IPCC reports should be presumed to be
government opinion with no value as reliable science unless independently verified by the
scientific method.
Accordingly, none of the IPCC reports cited in the Proposed Rule and the RIA have any
scientific value. It would be arbitrary and capricious to use them in the Proposed Rule under State
Farm.
F. RIA Section 4 Benefit Analysis's Reliance on the February 2021 IWG SCC
Estimate of the Social Cost of Carbon.
The RIA is significantly based on the Interagency Working Group's "Technical Support
Document: Social Cost of Carbon, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide Interim Estimates under Executive
Order 13990" (February 26, 2021) ("IWG SCC Estimate"). The RIA states:
We have evaluated the SC-GHG estimates in the February 2021 SC-
GHG TSD [IWG SCC Estimate] ... EPA finds that these estimates,
while likely an underestimate, are the best currently available SC-
GHG estimates until revised estimates have been developed
reflecting the latest, peer -reviewed science."
The IWG SCC Estimate computes the Social Cost of Carbon by combining three
theoretical models, called DICE, PAGE and FUND. Together, they are called the Integrated
Assessment Models (IAMS).93 It is scientifically invalid for multiple separate reasons and, thus,
so is the RIA Section 4 Benefit Analysis.
First, the RIA says, "[i]n principle, SC-GHG includes the value of all climate change
impacts (both negative and positive), including (but not limited to) changes in net agricultural
productivity ...... 94
However, the positive impacts of CO2 on agricultural productivity are nowhere to be found
in the IWG SCC Estimate. Its Executive Summary makes clear that it is totally one-sided: "The
91 Seitz, supra.
92 RIA at 4-4.
9' Id. at 22-23.
94 Id. at 4-1.
41
SC-GHG is the monetary value of the net harm to society associated with adding a small amount
of that GHG to the atmosphere in a given year.... The SC-GHG, therefore, should reflect the
societal value of reducing emissions of the gas in question by one metric ton."95
Indeed, two of the three models, DICE and PAGE, expressly excluded any positive social
benefits of increased CO2 on agriculture. They only computed the social costs of CO2.96 They
failed to consider the voluminous contradictory data on the enormous social benefits of CO2 and
fossil fuels, and the disastrous consequences of Net Zeroing them detailed above. For this reason,
the IWG SCC Estimate is scientifically invalid and thus so is the RIA.
Second, the IWG SCC Estimate is scientifically invalid and so is the RIA because it relied
on the IPCC CMIP and other models that, as demonstrated above, fail to reliably predict
temperatures and thus should be scientifically rejected and never used.97
Third, the IWG SCC Estimate is scientifically invalid and so is the RIA for relying on IPCC
government -dictated opinions. It explained at page 32 that key numbers it used in its estimates
were based in part on five IPCC reports:
1. IPCC 2007 Synthesis Report, Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to
the Fourth Assessment Report
2. IPCC 2014 Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report, Contribution of Working
Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report
3. IPCC 2018 Global Warming of 1.5°C
4. IPCC 2019a Climate Change and Land
5. IPCC 2019b Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing
Climate.
Fourth, the IWG SCC Estimate is scientifically invalid and so is the RIA for relying on
consensus and peer review. It expressly explained it relied on peer review and consensus, not
scientific method, to determine its estimates:
In developing the SC-GHG estimates in 2010, 2013, and 2016 the
IWG used consensus -based decision making, relied on peer -
reviewed literature and models .... Going forward the IWG commits
to maintaining a consensus driven process for making evidence -
based decisions that are guided by the best available science and
input from the public, stakeholders, and peer reviewers. 98
Accordingly, the IWG SCC Estimate is scientifically invalid and so is the RIA. It would
be arbitrary and capricious to use them in the Proposed Rule under State Farm.
95 Id. at 2 (emphasis added).
96 Kevin D. Dayaratna, Ross McKittrick & Patrick J. Michaels, Climate Sensitivity,
Agricultural Productivity and the Social Cost of Carbon in FUND, ENvT'L EcoN. & POL'Y
STUDIES (2020), at 443.
97 Id. at 32.
98 Id. at 36 (emphasis added).
42
G. The EPA Endangerment Findings.
Are the Endangerment Findings,99 used extensively in the EPA Proposed Rule, scientific
knowledge derived by the scientific method? No. They, too, violate scientific method in numerous
ways and therefore provide no scientific knowledge that supports the EPA's Proposed Rule.
First, the Endangerment Findings (and TSD) "entirely failed to consider" (State Farm, 463
U.S. at 29) the four critically important aspects and relevant data concerning CO2, fossil fuels and
climate change detailed above.
Second, the Endangerment Findings (and TSD) emphasized that the opinions of three
government organizations were the "primary scientific basis" for the Findings:
The major assessments by the U.S. Global Climate Research
Program (USGCRP), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), and the National Research Council (NRC) serve as
the primary scientific basis supporting the Administrator's
endangerment finding.100
Unintentionally, the EPA Administrator made clear that she chose to use government -
determined opinions as "science," rather than scientific knowledge determined by the scientific
method:
The USGCRP, IPCC, and NRC assessments have been reviewed
and formally accepted by, commissioned by, or in some cases
authored by (IS. government agencies and individual government
scientists. These reports already reflect significant input from
EPA's scientists and the scientists of many other government
agencies. ioi
IPCC opinions are the dominant source of the purported "science" underlying the
Endangerment Findings, and indeed, all Net Zero policies to eliminate fossil fuel and CO2
emissions in the U.S. and worldwide. However, contrary to the vigorous assertions by the IPCC
that it provides the best climate science in the world, the IPCC is government -controlled as
demonstrated before. Thus, the IPCC issues only government opinions, not scientific knowledge.
Further, the USGCRP National Climate Assessments, as shown, are fatally flawed science
and therefore are also merely government opinion. Using these government opinions as the
"primary scientific basis" for the Endangerment Findings renders them invalid under scientific
method.
99 EPA, Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under
Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act, 74 Fed. Reg. 66,511 (Dec. 15, 2009). It is supported by the
"Technical Support Document for Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse
Gases Under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act" (Dec. 7, 2009), http://epa.gov/climatechange/
endangerment.html ("TSD").
'00 74 Fed. Reg. 66,497.
for Id. at 66511 (emphasis added).
43
Third, by admitting that it used "the scientific assessments of the IPCC, USGCRP, and the
NRC" as "best reference" for science,10' the EPA makes clear that it did not consider the
overwhelming contradictory science and evidence that there is no risk that fossil fuels and CO2
will cause catastrophic global warming. This is an egregious violation of scientific method.
Fourth, the Endangerment Findings (and TSD) rely on IPCC theoretical models that have
been proven conclusively by observations to fail. See Part IV.D.1. They would never be used in
science because they do not work.
Fih, the IPCC climate models used by the Endangerment Findings (and TSD) rely
frequently on peer review and consensus, which, as noted, does not determine scientific
knowledge.
Accordingly, the Proposed Rule's reliance on the Endangerment Findings corrupts the
scientific basis of the Proposed Rule. It would be arbitrary and capricious to use them in the
Proposed Rule under State Farm.
H. NAS's Valuing Climate Damages.
The National Academy of Sciences Valuing Climate Damages: Updating Estimating the
Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide (2017) is another one of the EPA's cited "major scientific
assessments [that] continue to demonstrate ... the impacts that GHGs have on public health and
welfare both for current and future generations."103
The NAS book expressly stated that it was not following the scientific method, but instead
was adopting "peer reviewed literature" as the "Scientific basis" for all "modules, their
components, their interactions, and their implementation."
RECOMMENDATION 2-2 The Interagency Working Group should use three criteria to
evaluate the overall integrated SC-CO2 framework and the modules to be used in that
framework: scientific basis, uncertainty characterization, and transparency.
Scientific basis: Modules, their components, their interactions, and their
implementation should be consistent with the state of scientific knowledge as
reflected in the body of current, peer -reviewed literature.104
With all due respect, this very prestigious scientific group chose not to follow the scientific
method. Instead, they based their analysis and thus all recommendations on peer review and
consensus, which provide opinions but have no value as scientific evidence. No matter how
distinguished the group, groupthink support of theories does not make them reliable science.
Theories only become reliable science when their predictions agree with observations.
Accordingly, the NAS book does not provide any scientific support for the Proposed Rule.
The Proposed Rule's reliance on it corrupts the scientific basis of the Proposed Rule. It would be
arbitrary and capricious to use them in the Proposed Rule under State Farm.
102 74 Fed. Reg. 66,511.
iO3 88 Fed. Reg. 33,249.
104 Id. at 47 (emphasis added).
m
VII. Conclusions.
In sum, the EPA has acted arbitrarily and capriciously in what it has failed to consider and
what it has considered as the basis for the Proposed Rule.
EPA has failed to consider critical aspects and data that reflect the enormous social benefits
Of COz, the enormous social benefits of fossil fuels, the scientific proof that there is no danger of
catastrophic global warming from the use of fossil fuels and resulting COz emissions, and the
disastrous consequences of restricting or eliminating them, including eliminating 61% of
electricity in the United States provided by fossil fuel electricity plants. Under State Farm and its
progeny, failing to consider such crucial aspects of the problem that the rule purports to address is
the hallmark of arbitrary and capricious agency action.
EPA, by the same token, has erred by relying on data and other unscientific sources that
only worsen its failures stated above. Consensus, peer review, government opinion from the IPCC,
models that do not work, omission of contradictory data, and fabrication of supporting data do not
pass muster under even the basic principles of the scientific method and do not provide scientific
knowledge. These flimsy methods of analysis should not provide the foundation for far-reaching
national environmental policy.
Taken together, the EPA's proposed Fossil Fuel Power Plant rule is fatally flawed and
should not be adopted, or at minimum must be revised from the ground up. As scientists, we urge
the EPA to change course from the fraught path it has outlined in the Proposed Rule.
M
Appendix: Curricula Vitae
William Hauser, Ph.D.
I am a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Physics at Princeton University.
I began my professional career in the Physics Department of Columbia University in 1964,
where I served as Director of the Columbia Radiation Laboratory from 1976 to 1979. I joined the
Physics Department of Princeton University in 1980.
I invented the sodium guidestar that is used in astronomical adaptive optics systems to
correct the degrading effects of atmospheric turbulence on imaging resolution. I have published
over 200 peer -reviewed scientific papers, am a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
I served as Director of Energy Research in the U.S. Department of Energy from 1991 to
1993. I was a co-founder in 1994 of Magnetic Imaging Technologies Incorporated (MITI), a small
company specializing in the use of laser -polarized noble gases for magnetic resonance imaging. I
served as Chairman of the Steering Committee of JASON from 1987 to 1990.
I served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Emerging
Technologies at The National, Security Council in the White House from 2018 to 2019.
I am the Chair of the Board of Directors of the CO2 Coalition, a nonprofit 501(c)(3)
organization established in 2015 to educate thought leaders, policy makers and the public about
the vital contribution made by carbon dioxide to our lives and our economy.
Appendix: Curricula Vitae
Richard Lindzen, Ph.D.
I am an Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science Emeritus at MIT. After
completing my doctorate at Harvard in 1964 (with a thesis on the interaction of photochemistry,
radiation and dynamics in the stratosphere), I did postdoctoral work at the University of
Washington and at the University of Oslo before joining the National Center for Atmospheric
Research as a staff scientist. At the end of 1967, I moved to the University of Chicago as a tenured
associate professor, and in 19711 returned to Harvard to assume the Gordon McKay Professorship
(and later the Burden Professorship) in Dynamic Meteorology. In 19811 moved to MIT to assume
the Alfred P. Sloan Professorship in Atmospheric Sciences. I have also held visiting
professorships at UCLA, Tel Aviv University, and the National Physical Laboratory in
Ahmedabad, India, and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, and the Laboratory for Dynamic Meteorology at the University of Paris.
I developed our current understanding of the quasi -biennial oscillation of the tropical
stratosphere, the current explanation for dominance of the solar semidiurnal and diurnal tides at
various levels of the atmosphere, the role of breaking gravity waves as a major source of friction
in the atmosphere, and the role of this friction in reversing the meridional temperature gradient at
the tropopause (where the equator is the coldest latitude) and the mesopause (where temperature
is a minimum at the summer pole and a maximum at the winter pole). I have also developed the
basic description of how surface temperature in the tropics controls the distribution of cumulus
convection and led the group that discovered the iris effect where upper -level cirrus contract in
response to warmer surface temperatures. I have published approximately 250 papers and books.
I am an award recipient of the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical
Union. I am a fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union
and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the National
Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
I have served as the director of the Center for Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard and
on numerous panels of the National Research Council. I was also a lead author on the Third
Assessment Report of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the report for which
the IPCC shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. I am currently a member of the CO2
Coalition.