How will regulating carbon dioxide affect the cost of burning fossil fuels?
The New York Times reports that the Obama Administration’s EPA is expected to begin regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
The story begins:
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming of the planet, according to top Obama administration officials.
The story also stated that the change could have far-reaching implications for transportation, manufacturing, energy production, and the standing U.S. diplomats will have at the U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen.
If the Obama Administration takes such a step, it will draw an even sharper contrast with the Bush Administration.
The environmental agency is under order from the Supreme Court to make a determination whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant that endangers public health and welfare, an order that the Bush administration essentially ignored despite near-unanimous belief among agency experts that research points inexorably to such a finding.
Brief Commentary:
I’m so glad to see this type of change take shape. Over the last eight years, I have watched in dismay along with so many other people the refusal of the U.S. president to base policy on scientific evidence (or, for many policies, we could get away with just saying, “based on evidence”) and when we voted for a new leader, we hoped for this type of reasonable decision-making.
It’s certainly a relief to see President Obama more apt to have policy follow the scientific consensus over a handful of climate change skeptics.
Let’s not applaud yet, though. The decision, as stated in the title, is, “expected,” and let’s hope Mr. Obama lives up to this expectation. It’s far past time for the United States to take the lead in reducing this problem for which we bear so very much of the responsibility.
Read the whole story at the New York Times.
Related posts:
- Green Point Positive: Obama EPA to Regulate CO2 as a Pollutant George W. Bush’s EPA didn’t want to do it. They...
- Polar Bear Listed, “Endangered” Polar bears have been listed on the “Endangered Species” list,...
- False Debate of Offshore Oil Drilling Will offshore oil drilling solve our energy crisis? Should it...
