In a move surely timed to coincide with the beginning of the climate talks at Copenhagen, the EPA has finally taken an official stand on the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
The EPA reported "The Administrator finds that the current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases--carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)--in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations."
This announcement is likely aimed not only at the negotiators in Denmark, but at Congress as well with a contentious Cap-and-trade bill currently facing the Senate as well as a proposed ruling to set emissions standards for all light duty automobiles to be operated within the US. The announcement today was necessary because until now, the US government had not taken an official position on the impacts of GHGs. This is a major step forward in US climate policy, marking a departure from Bush era policies. In 2007, in the case of Massachusetts v. EPA the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had the authority to regulate Greenhouse gases. However, the Bush-Cheney administration ignored the EPAs findings and refused to officially report them. With this position formalized, hopefully the process for introducing future climate legislation will be streamlined.
The EPA administrator when announcing the report, said that this move was the next logical step for her agency, stating that it was integral to the passing of several new programs including emissions tracking from major contributors, mandatory use of best available technology, and the possibility of working with individual polluters to reduce emissions.
Obviously, not everyone is happy about this report and its coincidence with a major effort to revitalize the American economy. "An endangerment finding from the EPA could result in a top-down command-and-control regime that will chock off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project,” Thomas Donahue, president and CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce said in a statement released earlier today.
Beyond its influence over US specific policy, there is little doubt that the EPA hopes to sway the decisions of those influenced in the Copenhagen talks. With an official admission from the world's largest polluter regarding the effect of CO2 and other GHGs, it is my hope that nations resistant to emission cuts may be more inclined to take action.
Though the Senate's inability to pass any climate legislation this year has certainly served to all but prevent any meaningful treaties being developed, hopefully this long overdue report from the EPA will help move along future rulings in the US and abroad.
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I think its important that the EPA finally came to face reality. If we continue to travel on our current path I could see the world in shambles in 20 years. We still adhere to using ‘dirty’ non-renewable fuels to drive our economy. The reduction and extinction of the Appalachia is nearly complete, while we have a new mountain full of nuclear waste—which poses an extreme national security threat. People have single-handedly increase carbon emissions through increased single-occupancy-vehicles (SOV). Also there is an increase development of corn and soy based, non-organic, exported foods that have to be produced in a synthetic fashion because of the increased land consumption of urban sprawl. Also due to the fact of increases SOV and synthetically processed foods everyone in the world collective weight has doubled in the past 20 years.
ReplyDeleteThe EPA will use the Clean Air Act to regulate CO2. With endangerment findings they could require businesses that emit as little as 250 tons of CO2 a year to install technology to curb emissions. However, in its release, the EPA says that it is only planning to require permits from the biggest and baddest emitters of CO2, those that emit more than 25,000 tons of CO2 per year. Of course, big business is already planning on sueing the EPA on the grounds that them paying to clean up the atmosphere they are destroying is unfair.
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