EPA gets airborne

The EPA just claimed jurisdiction over the world's airlines.  They are gonna publish regulations on aircraft emissions.  Not that this will reduce emissions, it will just serve as a tax on air travel. 
   The best engineers in the world have been working flat out for 100 years to make aircraft more efficient.  They have had some success, new airliners with the latest engines are a tad more fuel efficient than ones built 10 years ago.  Boeing and Airbus salesmen claim as much as 20%, most people will allow them 5%.  That's enough for the airlines to order new planes and mothball what they are flying now.  Boeing has a backlog of 900 orders for its latest 787 model.  And nearly as many for its re engined 737 MAX.  Airbus is doing likewise.  In short, the most fuel efficient possible airliners are in full production and going into service as fast as they roll off the production line. 
   With jet fuel at $2.50 a gallon the airlines have all the incentive necessary to conserve fuel as much as possible.  The air frame builders have every incentive to improve fuel burn, namely,  planes that burn less fuel have better range and can haul bigger loads. 
   In a nutshell, market forces have made air travel as fuel efficient as possible.  EPA regulation won't improve anything, it will serve in place of a tax.  In the depths of Great Depression 2.0, we don't need more taxes. 

Navigable Waters of the United States

The original Clean Water Act gave jurisdiction to the EPA over all the navigable waters. This was intended to limit EPA enforcement to sizable bodies of water, not every puddle in the land.  Water is very common, and you can find small amounts of water, puddles and such pretty much everywhere.  If we allow the EPA jurisdiction over every puddle in the US, we have given them control of most of the land across the country.  Maybe Death Valley is dry enough to avoid EPA control, but few other places are.
  The EPA just issued 100 or more pages of new regulation which claims jurisdiction over pretty much everywhere.
  Congress ought stop this land grab.  A simple law, which declares that EPA jurisdiction is limited to waters deep enough to float a boat, all year round.  Such a law could be written on one side of an ordinary 8.5 * 10 inch sheet of typing paper. 

Cellulosic Ethanol

President Bush introduced the idea back maybe 10 years ago.  Back then the greenies were pushing ethanol (drinking alcohol) as a motor fuel, it was supposed to save the planet.  For some reason the carbon dioxide created by burning alcohol didn't contribute to Global Warming, where as the carbon dioxide from gasoline did. 
   Anyhow the greenies convinced Congress to require motor fuel to contain 10% ethanol.  Trouble is, you have to make ethanol from corn, which is food, which is responsible for the drastic rise in food prices since the ethanol mandate took effect.
  And so, some greenie claimed that you could make ethanol from waste, the chaff from wheat, the cobs from corn, brush clippings, wood and woody plants.  And the Bush administration tried.  Congress added a mandate to add "cellulosic ethanol" to motor fuel.  Only nobody has been able to make ethanol from garden trimmings yet, so EPA is raising the price of gasoline by fining oil companies for not adding cellulosic ethanol of which there is none to be had.
   And, I doubt that there ever will be any cellulosic ethanol.  Cellulose (wood) is the result of a billion years of plants evolving a material that is inedible to animals.   And it works.  I may have deer eating my vegetables, but you don't see 'em eating the siding off my house.  Or the cord wood off my woodpile.  Inedible to animals means no digestive juices or stomach acids can turn wood into sugar.  And the animals have been evolving digestive juices and stomach acids for as long as the plants have been evolving inedible wood.  This says to me that wood, and woody plant stems cannot be turned into sugar, or alcohol, by anything.  The plants have won.  With the exception of termites, no animal can eat wood.  Which is a good thing, if wood were edible, there would be no forests.  Animals would eat the trees right down to the ground. 

Proper background and education

That's what Gina McCarthy has, according to a letter to the editor of the Manchester Union Leader.  The letter writer was bashing our two US senators for not pushing McCarthy into the job of EPA administrator.  McCarthy is a new name to me, an old news junkie who watches a lot of cable TV news. 
   McCarthy has a masters degree in "Environmental Engineering and Planning" from Tufts.  Tufts is OK, but it was my safety school way back when.  The "environmental engineering" degree is another new one on me.  Real engineering is either civil, mechanical, or electrical.  As holder of a real electrical engineering degree,  I  don't have much respect for something so trendy as "environmental engineering".  Does such a major require you to know anything?  Like integral calculus? Strength of materials?  Laplace transforms? Boolean algebra?  Or is it all touchy feely talk about how wonderful it is to live a Hiawatha livestyle?
   Since graduation McCarthy has held jobs in various state environmental pollution agencies.  In short a career bureaucrat.  No real world experience. 
   Somehow I don't feel so good about Gina at the EPA.