EPA: Emissions threaten public

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday officially adopted the position that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to the public’s health and welfare, a move that could trigger a series of federal regulations affecting polluters from vehicles to coal-fired power plants.

The EPA’s action marks a major shift in the federal government’s approach to global warming. The Bush administration opposed putting mandatory limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, on the grounds that they would hurt business, and the EPA had resisted attempts even to consider it as part of its mission.

What happens next is unclear. The agency’s proposed finding likely will intensify pressure on Congress to pass legislation that would limit greenhouse gases, as President Obama, many lawmakers and some industry leaders prefer. But cap-and-trade legislation, which would limit emissions and allow emitters to trade pollution allowances, is fiercely opposed by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats from fossil-fuel-dependent Midwestern states who fear that such a system would raise energy prices and hurt the nation’s economy.

If Congress doesn’t act, the Obama administration is likely to press ahead with at least some curbs on carbon dioxide and other pollutants blamed for global warming.

“It is now no longer a choice between doing a bill or doing nothing,” said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., co-author of the main House bill establishing federal limits on greenhouse gases. “It is now a choice between legislation and regulation. The EPA will have to act if Congress does not act.”

Officials from the industries that stand to be most affected indicated Friday that they would rather help shape standards through the legislative process than defer to federal regulators.

“It does provide a certain degree of incentive, if not leverage, to pass a legislative agenda on climate,” said Dave McCurdy, president and chief executive of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and a former House member.

The EPA’s proposed finding, which is subject to a 60-day comment period, comes almost exactly two years after the Supreme Court ordered the agency to examine whether emissions linked to climate change should be curbed under the Clean Air Act. The finding makes clear that the agency views these pollutants as threats to public health, the environment and national security.

“In both magnitude and probability, climate change is an enormous problem,” reads the finding, which identifies carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride as contributing to global warming. “The greenhouse gases that are responsible for it endanger public health and welfare within the meaning of the Clean Air Act.”

In her statement releasing the finding, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said that while global warming pollution is “a serious problem now and for future generations,” Americans can combat it without making a major economic sacrifice. “This pollution problem has a solution – one that will create millions of green jobs and end our country’s dependence on foreign oil.”

A slew of business groups and Republican lawmakers were critical, saying Congress is better equipped to determine how best to limit greenhouse gases. Rep. Darrell Issa, of California, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, suggested that “this administration is playing a game of chicken with Congress over regulations and our economy: Either pass legislation or force economically damaging new regulations on businesses.”

But activists such as Emily Figdor, federal global warming director for Environment America, said the administration is simply recognizing its obligations under the law.

“ ‘Duh’ may not be a scientific term, but it applies here,” she said. “EPA has embraced the basic facts on global warming that scientists around the world have acknowledged for years.”