EPA Uses ‘Endangerment Finding’ Stick to Spur Climate Change Legislation

September 1, 2009

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The Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to declare carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant in the upcoming months may help push climate-change legislation as top senators delay plans until late September to set new limits on carbon dioxide emissions, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The House narrowly passed an energy and climate-change bill in June.

On Aug. 31, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said a formal “endangerment finding,” which would trigger federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act even if Congress doesn’t pass a final climate-change bill, probably would “happen in the next months,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle. In April, the EPA proposed to regulate carbon dioxide along with five other greenhouse gases as pollutants that jeopardize public health and welfare.

If Congress fails to pass a climate change bill by the end of the year, the EPA is ready to mandate limits on carbon emissions, reports Reuters.

But for now, the fate of U.S. climate change legislation is in the hands of the Senate where several legislators including California Democrat Barbara Boxer, are making “tweaks” to the bill, reports Reuters.

There is speculation that Boxer might opt for a slightly higher goal for reducing carbon emissions such as 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, instead of the 17 percent in the House bill, and Senator John Kerry wants stronger controls to deter abusive financial market speculation on trading of pollution permits, reports Reuters.

In addition, there are a host of scenarios for deal-making among the senators that range from a lower target — 14 percent — for reducing emissions and more breaks for coal states to passing legislation already approved by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that requires utilities to generate 15 percent of their electricity by 2021 from renewable sources like solar and wind power, according to Reuters.

Outside of government discussions, some corporations are using scare tactics to influence consumers against a climate-change bill that significantly reduces carbon emissions.

As an example, San Antonio-based Valero Energy Corp. is posting signs at its gasoline stations warning customers about the projected price hike in fuel if the House-approved bill on carbon cap-and-trade becomes law, reports the Houston Chronicle.

Valero, the largest U.S. independent refining company, said its costs for carbon emissions would total $6 billion to $7 billion a year, depending on the auction costs of the permits, reports the Houston newspaper.

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Reader Comments

Why is letting consumers know of the projected hike in fuel cost considered a “scare tactic”? Is informing people of the speculated consequences of the climate-change bill any more of a scare tactic than those who preach the speculated perils of CO2e emissions? I wish we could have an honest discussion of the topic without the political spin.

Marcus Lytle | September 1st, 2009

Maybe the EPA should declare Oxygen a dangerous gas as well. It did kill astronaughts on the pad in a fire and: “There’s a caustic substance common to our environment whose very presence turns iron into brittle rust, dramatically increases the risk of fire and explosion, and sometimes destroys the cells of the very organisms that depend on it for survival. This substance that makes up 21% of our atmosphere is Diatomic oxygen (O2), more widely know as just oxygen.

Of course, oxygen has its good points. Besides being necessary for respiration and the reliable combustion engine, it can be liquefied and used as rocket fuel. Oxygen is also widely used in the world of medicine as a means to imbue the body with a greater amount of the needed gas. But recent studies indicate that administering oxygen might be doing less good than hoped–and in fact be causing harm. No one is immune to the dangers of oxygen, but the people who might most suffer the ill effects are infants newly introduced to breathing, and those who are clinically dead.”

Wayne | September 1st, 2009

The US Chamber of Commerce has announced that they are planning on asking the EPA in court to prove that CO2 is a health hazaed. That my frends is the end of ALGORE’s religion. The house of cards falls. They have no cards to lay on the table.

bobiscold | September 1st, 2009

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