The Republicans on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works have blocked the vote on confirming President Obama's choice to become the new EPA Administrator, Gina McCarthy. The previous Administrator, Lisa Jackson, became embroiled in an email scandal by using an alias to conduct official government business in private, away from the scrutiny of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requirements. As with the emerging Benghazi scandal, and the Fast and Furious scandal before it, the Obama Administration has been conducting a lot of official business in a manner they do not want to have subjected to public scrutiny.

The senators said she had refused to answer their questions about transparency in the agency.

Once again we have a balance of powers dispute between Republican legislators and the Executive Branch. With the MSM firmly in Obama's pocket, how do the Republicans break the impasse in the perception of the low information voting public?

My suggestion would be to demand that Ms. McCarthy answer some technical questions relating specifically to the job she is applying to do. Does she have the technical competence for the job?

My first question would be, "Given that the mean temperature of the Moon at its Equator  is only  -63 degrees F (220 K), and that it is at the same average distance from the Sun as is the Earth, why is the average temperature of the Earth so much higher?" NASA puts the mean temperature of the whole surface of the Earth (not just the Equator) at +59 F (288 K). That is a difference of 122 degrees Fahrenheit!

Please note that the Moon's albedo is shown as 0.136, while the Earth's is 0.367.  The Earth reflects 2.69 times the incident sunlight than the Moon.  So my second question would be, "With the Moon absorbing a larger fraction of the incident sunlight, why wouldn't it be warmer than the Earth?"

The problem for AGW fanatics, such as those people favored by this administration, including Ms. McCarthy, is that to answer those questions they would have to admit that the Earth has a huge natural (not anthropogenic) greenhouse effect that dwarfs any effect due to carbon dioxide or methane. In fact, contrary to the opinion of Justice John Paul Stevens of the SCOTUS, in Massachusetts v. EPA, water vapor is "The primary species of greenhouse gas". With the EPA's legal authority to regulate CO2 based on a false premise, their whole green agenda is at risk. And the Republicans have the science on their side!

Let the Sun shine in!

Bruce Thompson

Bruce Thompson worked as a thermodynamicist for Grumman Aerospace during the summer of 1969, when the Grumman Lunar Excursion Module, Eagle, carried Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the surface of the Moon.