Will Congress Be Pushed to Act on Climate Change? EPA to Declare CO2 and Other Greenhouse Gases Pollutants

GREEN IS GOOD
by Margaret Smith

After two years of waiting, it looks like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is finally trying to spur some real action in Congress on slow-moving climate change legislation.

A 2007 Supreme Court ruling found that greenhouse gases are considered air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act, and could be regulated if the government determined they were a threat to the public. This week, the EPA took the first step.    

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced in a press conference on Monday that the agency would undertake a formal endangerment finding within the next couple of months on greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that threaten public health and welfare. Those under scrutiny include methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride and... carbon dioxide.

Yes, carbon dioxide. Regulating one of the most common gases on the planet might seem strange.

But the EPA is doing it with good reason: Congress is taking too much of the earth's time to pass the necessary legislation, and carbon dioxide is one of the main greenhouse gases that enter the atmosphere due to human activity.

But carbon dioxide? Why is the same gas we exhale soon to be declared a dangerous pollutant?

Carbon dioxide is emitted in the atmosphere in a number of ways. Naturally it occurs through the carbon cycle, and then is subsequently removed from the atmosphere by oceans and growing plants. When in balance, these numbers should be equal.  

Since the industrial revolution, however, human activities have drastically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air has jumped up 36 percent from pre-industrial times to today -- almost all due to human activities such as deforestation and the burning of oil, coal and gas.

Recently, some studies have shown that some earth systems could absorb more carbon dioxide than previously expected. This won't make any significant change in our climate soon enough, however, and the EPA is signaling that it is time for action.

Congress doesn't seem to be listening, though. Jackson made her announcement right as senators were postponing their plans to introduce new legislation to cap emissions on carbon dioxide. Originally, the bill was going to be introduced next Tuesday, but the date has been pushed back to later this month. 

Under the Clean Air Act, a formal endangerment finding would require the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas pollution -- even if Congress never passes a final bill. And now that the agency has closed the obligatory 60-day public comment period, they can begin the process any day.

"The EPA received 300,000 comments on the proposal and is currently reviewing these comments in preparing for the final rule," the agency said in a statement.

Both President Obama and Jackson have made it clear that they would prefer Congress to take the lead on setting greenhouse gas limits, however. Not only has the administration been receiving some harsh criticism on the EPA's decision to take action on greenhouse gas emissions, but the EPA doesn't have enough manpower to regulate the emissions effectively. Congress is better positioned to make the change.

"Legislation is so important, because it will combine the most efficient, most economy-wide, least costly [and] least disruptive way to deal with carbon dioxide pollution," Jackson said to reporters. "We get further faster without top-down regulation."

Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who serves as majority chairman on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and John Kerry (D-MA), who has done work on air pollution in the past, were planning on introducing a climate-change bill of their own last week. In a joint statement on Monday, the pair said they were delaying it until later in the month due to Senator Kennedy's death, Kerry's hip surgery in August and, of course, the intensive work being done on health care.

GREEN IS GOOD