EDITORIAL: Imposing a no-fly zone

For years now, President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency have worked in concert to make life more difficult — and much more expensive — for everyday Americans. The bulk of the pain comes from sweeping regulations and mandates, none of which have to pass congressional scrutiny, all in the name of fending off climate change.

However, the busybody bureaucrats in the Obama administration have a “do as I say, not as I do” attitude. And now a Republican congressman has noticed and hatched a deviously delightful plan to make the EPA practice what it preaches.

The Daily Caller reported last week that North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson has offered an amendment to an appropriations bill that would effectively ban EPA employees from flying around the country on the taxpayer dime.

If it sounds like overkill, consider that EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and the head of the EPA’s clean air office, Janet McCabe, both travel from Washington, D.C., on weekends to visit their families — Ms. McCarthy to Boston and Ms. McCabe to Indianapolis. Ms. McCabe has also spent much time and taxpayer cash flying around the nation to pump up the Clean Power Plan, a set of rules foisted onto Americans last August by the president and the EPA that aims to cut carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. (That plan was so overreaching that the U.S. Supreme Court in February stayed its implementation.)

The Daily Caller News Foundation previously estimated that Ms. McCabe’s carbon footprint from air travel alone surpasses the total carbon footprint of the average American.

Glenn Reynolds, University of Tennessee law professor and USA Today columnist, picked up on the Daily Caller report and dug up this gem from President Obama; “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times.” Or, presumably, fly all over the place, right?

Well, you can if you’re in government, apparently. Obeying dubious climate change diktats is for the little people.

Rep. Hudson’s amendment still allows EPA officials to fly anywhere they like. It just bars the use of taxpayer funds to pay for the travel. The House should insist his amendment sticks with the bill. If climate change is so dangerous, the EPA can hold its meetings on Skype or by conference call.

As Mr. Reynolds regularly states: “I’ll believe it’s a problem when the people who say it’s a problem start acting like it’s a problem.”