Environmental Activism's Blunt Legal Instrument
By Hugh Hewitt

Recently an environmental think tank in Colorado convened a meeting on the future of the Endangered Species Act vis-a-vis global warming, and environmental activists in attendance were candid about their agenda: They believe that last year's listing of the polar bear as a threatened species has not only opened the door to the regulation of all American businesses that emit carbon, but that such regulation is mandated. The Endangered Species Act is the most blunt of regulatory instruments, and now that activists can claim the right to use it to shut down oil and gas production in the lower 48 states--and many other carbon producing activities as well--they will certainly do so.

Only urgent legal action by the regulated industries will prevent the slow creep of backdoor and burdensome regulation on America's energy producers, regulation that means much higher energy costs and indeed shortages for American consumers not very long from now.