I don't think that most people realize yet what a looming disaster this takeover portends. It MUST be stopped.. “It effectively will assign E.P.A. broad authority over the use and control of energy, in turn authorizing it to regulate virtually every sector of the economy. If this isn't just about total fascism, then I don't know what is.
E.P.A. to Clear the Way for Regulation of Warming Gases
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: April 17, 2009
WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday is expected to formally declare carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases to be pollutants that threaten public health and welfare, setting in motion a process that for the first time will regulate the gases blamed for global warming.
E.P.A. officials, briefing members of Congress in advance of the ruling, said that the agency had found the science supporting the so-called endangerment finding “compelling and overwhelming.” The ruling triggers a 60-day comment period before any proposed regulations governing emissions of greenhouse gases are published.
But even as the E.P.A. begins the process of regulating these substances, Congress is engaged in writing wide-ranging energy and climate change legislation that will pre-empt any action taken by the agency. President Obama and Lisa P. Jackson, the agency’s administrator, have repeatedly said they much prefer that Congress address global warming rather than have the E.P.A. tackle it through administrative action.
Two years ago this month, the Supreme Court, in the case Massachusetts v. E.P.A., ordered the agency to determine whether greenhouse gases harm the environment and public health or explain why they do not. Agency scientists were virtually unanimous in determining that they do, but top officials of the George W. Bush administration suppressed the finding and took no action.
In his first days in office, Mr. Obama promised to review the case and act quickly if the finding were justified. Friday’s announcement is the fruit of that review. The E.P.A. action was approved after two weeks of scrutiny by the White House Office of Management and Budget’s information and regulatory affairs arm.
The United States has come under fierce international criticism for trailing other industrialized nations in moving to regulate carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants. With this move, and the parallel action by Congress toward a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases, the American government can now point to concrete progress as nations begin to write a new international climate change treaty.
Even before the decision was formally announced, environmental advocates applauded.
“At long last, the E.P.A. has officially recognized that carbon pollution is harmful to our health and to the climate,” said David Doniger, director of the climate center at the Natural Resources Defense Council and one of the lawyers in the Supreme Court case. “The heat-trapping pollution from our cars and power plants leads to killer heat waves, stronger hurricanes, higher smog levels, and many other direct and indirect threats to human health.”
“With this step,” he added, “Administrator Lisa Jackson and the Obama administration have gone a long way to restore respect for both science and law. The era of defying science and the Supreme Court has ended.”
Auto companies, utilities and other emitters have long dreaded this day but reacted with caution because they regulatory process has just begun and they hope to address their concerns in the legislation now before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Roger Martella, general counsel at the E.P.A. during the Bush administration, said the finding marks the official start of an era of controlling carbon in the United States.
“The proposal, once finalized, will give EPA far more responsibility than addressing climate change,” Mr. Martella said. “It effectively will assign E.P.A. broad authority over the use and control of energy, in turn authorizing it to regulate virtually every sector of the economy.”
nytimes.com |
