The EPA report is interesting, although I wish I had time to plow through the <a href http://www.epa.gov/air/sect812/copy99.html">whole report to see what the "assumptions" were.

It is of course also unlikely that an organization whose sole reason for existence is the regulation of industry would issue a report that did not make it look like a really swell idea. This doesn't mean they're wrong, but one has to keep one's eyes open. Had the Department of Defense put out a report showing how wonderful all the defense spending was, I dare say it would get a slightly more skeptical response from liberals.

For the record, I do not, and never did, have objections to pollution controls in principle, any more than I would object to a law preventing my neighbor from throwing his trash over my fence. Some are reasonable. Some are not.

What I am vigilant about is efforts that are less about pollution and more about politics, and right now, the global warming controversy is dominated by politics.

I am also mindful of the fact that no environmental organization has ever proposed a solution to pollution problems that did not involve vastly increasing the control of central authority over our lives.