In an ongoing effort to forestall carbon regulations, the new Republican House is agitating to cripple the Environmental Protection Agency. Newt Gingrich went so far as to call for the agency to be scrapped. A bill written by Fred Upton, the new chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and notorious climate denier James Inhofe would stop short of axing the agency, but would repeal its authority to regulate greenhouse gases and grant states like California waivers to impose stricter emission standards than the federal government.

But a recent poll conducted by ORC International found that the voters don't support these efforts. Just 25 of those interviewed in late January backed Gingrich's plan to abolish the EPA; 67 percent opposed it. Perhaps even more telling, when asked about eight actions Congress could take this year, providing incentives for renewable power garnered more support (83 percent) than anything else.

The anti-EPA agenda is largely being driven by the big-bucks conservative activists, such as the Koch brothers and Tea Party bankroller and former Representative Dick Armey. Armey penned a recent op-ed for FoxNews.com. The Wonk Room reports that David Koch met with John Boehner on his very first day as Speaker of the House to express his beef with the EPA.

Environmental groups are working hard to protect the EPA's mandate. Especially of interest to ClimateHealthConnect is that they're focusing on the EPA's role in safeguarding human health. While it remains difficult to put a price tag on benefits to the natural environment, human health effects are easily measured in dollars — and lots of them. For instance, the EPA's recent move to limit mercury emissions from cement plants would save nearly 20 times as much in health care spending as it would cost businesses to comply.

Indeed, the a World Resources Institute analysis concludes, "there is extensive literature showing that the costs of environmental regulations are more than offset by a broad range of economic, public health and jobs-related benefits." Over the 10-year period starting October 1, 1999, the Office of Management and Budget estimated that EPA regulations cost the nation $26-29 billion. Their benefits, however, saved between $82 and $533 billion. In other words, their benefits outpaced their costs by at least a factor of three, and possibly by a factor of 20.

The EPA program to limit sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, cut levels of the pollutant to 35 percent what they were in 1976 at a mere fourth of the cost the agency projected. Of course, affected industries bandied about numbers that wildly exceeded official estimates to back their claims that the regulation would put them out of business.

It's hard to argue a track record like the EPA's — unless of course you're an oil tycoon like David Koch.

A study in the wonky journal Energy Policy makes the case that the whole world could be using exclusively renewable energy within 20 years. The plan doesn't even include nuclear power, natural gas or biofuels, which sometimes spur deforestation.

The analysis, by UC Davis research scientist Mark Delucchi and Stanford engineer Mark Jacobson, contradicts industry claims that renewable energy is a pipe dream and that we must continue using costly and unhealthy energy sources such as fossil fuels and nuclear power.

The chief barrier to this clean energy future, write the researchers, is not technological know-how but political will.

The blueprint includes use of cutting-edge 5 MW wind turbines, a mix of photovoltaic and concentrated solar power plants, household solar panels and wave and geothermal energy. The chief technical difficulty is balancing power supply from the intensive but erratic sources like wind and solar with that from less intensive but constant sources like wave and geothermal facilities.

Suggestion: Bookmark the study and send it out every time someone tells you we can't pull off a purely clean energy future.