In the future the Government will tax the air that you breathe.
EPA Calls Greenhouse Gases a Danger
By SIOBHAN HUGHES and JONATHAN WEISMAN
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday issued a finding that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases pose a danger to the public, setting the stage for a battle over regulations that could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. economy.
Unless superseded by congressional action, the EPA finding potentially could lead to a wave of new regulations, putting stricter emissions limits on a wide range of enterprises from power plants and oil refineries to automobiles and cement makers.
Business groups have warned that using the Clean Air Act to control greenhouse gases could result in costly new burdens for businesses. Environmental groups have cheered the signals that the Obama administration would declare greenhouse gases a danger.
The finding marks a significant turn in U.S. policy on climate change. The Bush administration didn't submit the Kyoto climate treaty negotiated under President Bill Clinton to the Senate for ratification, citing that agreement's failure to impose limits on China and other developing economies. With Friday's finding, the U.S. takes a big step closer to European Union allies, which have agreed to Kyoto greenhouse gas limits and are pushing for a new treaty on climate change at a meeting scheduled for December in Copenhagen.
In announcing the proposed finding, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the EPA analysis "confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations' and warrants steps to curtail it.
White House officials made it clear Friday that President Obama still prefers a legislative approach to curbing global warming. The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold hearings next week on an Obama proposal to cap carbon emissions and sell tradable permits that businesses must buy to emit carbon dioxide. The White House will dispatch senior officials to those hearings, an official said.
But Mr. Obama is under pressure to use the EPA's findings as a cudgel as Democratic leaders push the difficult legislation. Reps. Edward J. Markey (D, Mass.), who heads House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's special climate-change panel, and Jay Inslee (D, Wash.) have said the endangerment finding provides the administration a regulatory backstop in the event that a tough climate change bill cannot get past a Senate filibuster.
For now, the White House official said, Mr. Obama won't raise that specter. The EPA's findings could force a regulatory response, but with court challenges and the balky regulatory process, that could take years.
The EPA finding come about two years after the Supreme Court found that carbon dioxide is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act and that the EPA can regulate it. EPA spokeswoman Adora Andy didn't immediately return a phone call or an email seeking comment.
It isn't clear how quickly the Obama administration will act to start writing new rules based on the EPA finding. Administration officials have said they prefer that Congress pass legislation to curb U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions using a cap and trade system. That would require businesses to buy permits to emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and allow businesses that reduce their emissions to sell pollution rights to others. A cap and trade system is already operating in Europe.
A cap and trade system could allow businesses more flexibility to decide how to limit their emissions, and at what pace. It also would offer a potential reward to companies that move quickly to cut their emissions, effectively offsetting the costs of new technology. Imposing emissions limits using the Clean Air Act could hold businesses to more rigid timetables and performance standards, and wouldn't offer the opportunity of profiting from selling unneeded pollution rights.
On a conference call Friday with environmentalists, EPA officials repeatedly stressed they would take a go-slow approach, with public hearings next month in Arlington, Va., and Seattle, before the findings are official. Even after that, any new regulations would go through a public comment period, public hearings and a long review process.
"Whatever the process it, it will be the time-honored and ordinary process of soliciting public input, comments, hearings, with time to digest, then come to conclusions," an EPA official said. "The timeline will be consistent with very careful deliberations."
But when pressed, another EPA official said the administration won't leave it completely to Congress. "We are moving forward, regardless," the official said. "We're not thinking about this as a backstop. This is something legally mandated for us to do." |
