Did I misread that, or did an elected U.S. representative just refer Republicans’ efforts to scale back the Obama administration’s ever-encroaching regulatory regime as “Orwellian”? Because, correct me if I’m wrong, but…

Or·well·i·an

[awr-wel-ee-uhn]

adjective

of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or resembling the literary work of George Orwell  or the totalitarian future described in his antiutopian novel 1984  (1949).

…and it seems to me that the only thing “Orwellian” here is the rate at which President Obama has increased the federal government’s regulatory authority, most specifically by catering to environmentalist special interests and expanding the power and scope of the Environmental Protection Agency. From The Hill:

A liberal Democrat says House Republicans have summoned the spirit of George Orwell’s 1984 by dropping language about climate change from their bill to thwart regulations that affect the coal industry.

“I am not surprised that House Republicans would decide to throw any reference to climate change down a legislative Orwellian memory hole. This has been the most anti-environmental House in history,” said Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. …

The bill to block climate rules, sponsored by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), has now been rolled into a larger package to curtail White House policies that Republicans contend will harm coal mining and coal-fired power generation.

It takes aim at a number of other Environmental Protection Agency air pollution rules; restricts planned EPA rules governing management and disposal of coal ash, a waste product from coal plants; and restricts potential Interior Department rules on coal-mining wastes; among other provisions.

Yes, the environmentalist movement has long since infiltrated the federal bureaucracy, is steadily and exponentially presenting more barriers to economic growth, and is systematically killing off jobs and entire industries it has oh-so-wisely and magnanimously decided it doesn’t like, all at the cost of making Americans and the world poorer and choking off innovation; but the free marketeers are the ones who are being Orwellian.

Riddle me this, Rep. Markey — why is it that the single thing that so far presents the greatest opportunity for human beings to roll back their carbon footprint is actually natural gas, hem hem, and not some other government initiative or “investment”? Because the federal government isn’t going to be what saves us from potential environmental catastrophe — we’re perfectly capable of saving ourselves, with the innovations and efficiencies born of free-market competition. Central-planners who happen to carry the convenient excuse of ‘combating climate change’ in their back pockets are no nobler than any other sort of central-planners.