EPA Endangerment Finding Caught Republicans Off Guard

The EPA acted with the full authority previously granted by Congress and defined a set of green house gases to be endangering the public health of Americans. By classifying CO2 as endangering the public health the EPA can assert it’s authority to regulate and control carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, factories, and automobiles.

This government action is a huge proactive step to curb green houses and completely bypasses the foot dragging delays and stalling tactics going on in the Senate against the cap and trade bill. By acting to declare carbon emissions as endangering public health, the government now has the ability to invoke strict regulations and controls independent of any cap and trade legislation. In fact, cap and trade will now instantly become a bill that industries will likely support because that gives polluters an opportunity to buy pollution rights if they want to avoid the more expensive implementation of emissions controls.

President Obama has performed the perfect end-run against the Republicans who were hunkering down for a long cold winter of opposition to the cap and trade bill. This is a landmark move, on a par with the government’s declaration that smoking will kill you back in 1964. Conservatives will be calling for the President to be impeached over this move. I love it!

The coal powered electric industry says the cost of electricity will double. The manufacturing lobby says America will lose jobs to overseas production- duh, like that hasn’t happened yet? Manufacturing has always gone where the cheapest labor is. Allowing pollution to continue in the states will not keep jobs here- they’re already gone.

In another interesting news piece, the World Meteorological Organization announced the last ten years to be the warmest decade recorded in the last 150 years. While there has been a slight downward trend in the past few years the overall temperature of the earth remains at a record high level. The best chart of land and ocean temperature is computed and published by our National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). I’ve included the most recent publication below. The blue line is a five year average. There have been a lot of arguments against global warming because this chart shows a downturn in the last few years. It will take several decades of continuous decreasing temperature to cool the earth sufficiently to stem the effects of glacier melting.

Whether we’re still getting warmer can be debated, but what can’t be debated is the temperature we’re at today compared to the past. If the earth's temperature stayed about where it is today, the effects would be negligible. The concern for global warming is based on projected warming in the future. The recent trends support the argument against continued global warming and the Climategate controversy (hacked emails from noted authorities posted on the web) also points to that data.

The President has stuck his chin out pretty far on this decision. The fallout over next several months, even years, will be very interesting to watch.

Here are a couple articles on the subject:


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/science/earth/09climate.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-obama-environment8-2009dec08,0,3159719.story