George W. Bush’s EPA didn’t want to do it. They didn’t want to hurt businesses with higher costs.
Even Senator John McCain, former candidate for the Presidency, said today, “Let me be clear: I am a supporter of a strong cap-and-trade system, but I will not and cannot align myself with a giant government slush fund that will further burden our businesses and consumers.”
What the Senator Doesn’t Understand
Global warming is a pretty big deal. Imagine our coastal areas (including New York, Washington, D.C., and other major cities) where so many businesses are located being permanently flooded. Imagine other areas with droughts and stronger, more frequent tornadoes and hurricanes. Life on our planet would be fundamentally different if global warming plays out as it most likely would (according to scientists) if we take no action.
Then how will our businesses fare? The point is, changes in policy come slowly, but we don’t have much time to react to this crisis. Bold action is needed and regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant is just a start.
Applause for President Obama (and his EPA Director, Lisa Jackson)
The Supreme Court already ordered that President Bush’s EPA regulate CO2 as a pollutant. But he refused. Now, a President who sees that we must follow the rule of law.
According to the National Resources Defense Council,
In section 103(g) of the act, Congress explicitly included emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel power plants in a list of air pollutants that it directed the Environmental Protection Agency to include in pollution prevention programs. Section 103(g) of the act calls for “[i]mprovements in nonregulatory strategies and technologies for preventing or reducing multiple air pollutants, including sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, heavy metals, PM-10 (particulate matter), carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide, from stationary sources, including fossil fuel power plants.”
Following the Law
Now, our EPA is working to use the responsibility Congress gave them to regulate air pollution to really do something. But why? What is it that we’re talking about that made the EPA produce an endangerment finding on this matter? According to the BBC story about the finding:
In the endangerment finding, the EPA now cites a number of impacts that it believes may impact significantly on US citizens, including:
- an increased risk of droughts and floods
- sea level rise
- more intense storms and heatwaves
- harm to water supplies, agriculture and wildlife
Ms Jackson concluded that these impacts would fall disproportionately on people who were poor or in ill health, and on indigenous groups.
Green Point Positive for following the rule of law and for making polluters pay for damaging the environment. We should applaud the fact that the Obama Administration is looking toward the future with responsible eyes.
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