EPA Sends Greenhouse Endangerment Finding To White House
EPA Sends Greenhouse Endangerment Finding To White House
Following the schedule leaked to the public earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency has sent a global warming endangerment finding to the White House, nearly two years after the Supreme Court mandated action. The finding that “global warming is endangering the public’s health and welfare” will be signed by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on April 16th after interagency review, for publication in the Federal Register on April 30th. By the time the decision is finalized after two months of public comment, it will have been nearly two years since the EPA was blocked by the Bush White House from issuing such a finding.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce responded with dismay. Bill Kovacs, the Chamber’s vice president of environment, technology and regulatory affairs, complained:
By moving forward with the endangerment finding on greenhouse gases, EPA is putting in motion a set of decisions that may have far-reaching unintended consequences. Specifically, once the finding is made, no matter how limited, some environmental groups will sue to make sure it is applied to all aspects of the Clean Air Act. This will mean that all infrastructure projects, including those under the president’s stimulus initiative, will be subject to environmental review for greenhouse gases. Since not one of the projects has been subjected to that review, it is possible that the projects under the stimulus initiative will cease. This will be devastating to the economy.
Far from being “devastating to the economy,” a global warming endangerment finding is needed to allow the government and businesses to rationally guide future economic policy. As Robert Sussman wrote in the Wonk Room last year, responding to the same doom and gloom scenario painted that time by the Wall Street Journal, this fear is without merit:
The specter of bureaucrats running amok and strangling the economy — by intruding into small businesses and individual households and banning fuels on which millions of Americans depend — is a fantasy of die-hard free-market zealots. In fact, a new administration could enforce new global warming regulations with common sense, focusing on large emitters of greenhouse gases to achieve reasonable reductions while spurring trillions of dollars worth of economic growth and green-collar jobs.
Sussman is now the EPA Senior Policy Counsel.
This finding will officially end the era of denial on global warming. Instead of allowing political interference in scientific and legal decisions, as was the case in the previous administration, the Obama administration is letting the sun shine in on the dangerous realities of global warming.
6 Responses to “EPA Sends Greenhouse Endangerment Finding To White House”
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Our Nation needs to embrace modern energy and all the benefits that come along with it. Frankly I have never been interested in the climate “debate”.
There is no reason on Earth to continue poisoning ourselves or killing each other for energy. We have better options in our hands replete with promised growth, innovation and broad reaching benefits.
There is no argument that can defend the continued pursuit of expensive and dangerous destruction of our most vital resources, namely our health. The time is overdue for America to emerge again as a leader in sensibility and modernization. We have all the brilliant minds and able bodies we need today to move prominently forward now.
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:49 pmWhat will end the era of progressives suggesting that cap-and-trade can solve the problem faster or more economically than wind, lithium, and plug-in hybrid subsidies?
March 24th, 2009 at 12:51 amJPS: Subsidies without a carbon price or regulation are not sufficient to drive a fuel switch. There has to be some kind of mandatory policy.
Similarly, a carbon pricing mechanism without complementary policies (such as renewable incentives) is economically inefficient and could be regressive. I don’t believe there’s any one other than John McCain — who is certainly not a progressive — who argues that all that is needed is a cap-and-trade system.
March 24th, 2009 at 8:51 amWe need more proctologists who would remove the heads of our ‘public incumbents’ form the rectums of the corporations and other vested interests groups. One can not expect a politician who was bought by these groups, to serve the people who elected him. Profits before people never made any country better, nor its citizens happier, nor more secure.
March 25th, 2009 at 9:51 amOur political system is ‘toxic’, the root cause of our problems. The so called ‘political donations’ are nothing less than bribes which prevent our elected incumbents to vote the people’s interests, not the vested interests of the particular interests groups. There is nothing in our Constitution that guarantees any corporation to pollute, and ruin our lives. WE THE PEOPLE come before, not after the corporate interests.
March 25th, 2009 at 10:03 amIn making the argument an endangerment finding will not have serious regulatory impacts, the assumption is that EPA has the authority to amend the New Source Review permit triggers. Because those triggers are very low when applied to C02 (100/250 tons), even very small sources get caught within the NSR web. Unfortunately, the triggers are in statute and therefore any claim EPA can modify those triggers through interpretation or rulemaking is in question. No doubt the next several months will be interesting.
March 29th, 2009 at 10:16 pm