EPA ups pressure for climate change action

The Environmental Protection Agency Friday classified carbon dioxide and five other gases as pollutants that endanger human health and welfare, issuing a long-awaited rule designed in part to force congressional action on climate change and global warming.

The EPA ruled that six gases should be regulated under the Clean Air Act, following on a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that the greenhouse gases must be regulated.

The so-called “endangerment finding” does not include any new regulations and now moves to a public comment period, one which will track along with a debate that resumes in Congress next week over sweeping climate legislation which Democrat leaders expect will more likely be the tool for curbing greenhouse-gas emissions.

Environmentalists hailed the EPA move, calling it overdue after what they said was eight years of stalling during the Bush Administration. But business groups warned any action using the Clean Air Act could do major damage to the U.S. economy.

Congressional Democratic leaders have said they expect the legislative proposal to be the more likely vehicle for curbing greenhouse-gas emissions.

“The release of EPA’s proposed finding that global warming is a threat to public health and welfare is long overdue — we have lost eight years in this fight,” said Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer, California Democrat.

In a statement, EPA Administration Lisa P. Jackson said the finding “confirms that greenhouse-gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations.”

“Fortunately, it follows President Obama’s call for a low-carbon economy and strong leadership in Congress on clean energy and climate legislation. This pollution problem has a solution — one that will create millions of green jobs and end our country’s dependence on foreign oil,” she said.

The Bush administration had withheld releasing rules for regulating carbon dioxide for fear that using the Clean Air Act would mean severe hardship for American businesses.

But the Obama administration has moved quickly to release the ruling, although White House climate czar Carol Browner told a gathering in Boston earlier this month that it would be unlikely that the so-called “endangerment finding” would actually be used to regulate carbon dioxide.