EPA’ s Lisa Jackson panders to Copenhagen on opening day. Planned for months of course, with public comment ignored. It is now the people -vs- the EPA, coming to a courtroom near you.
From the EPA press release:
EPA: Greenhouse Gases Threaten Public Health and the Environment
Science overwhelmingly shows greenhouse gas concentrations at unprecedented levels due to human activity
WASHINGTON – After a thorough examination of the scientific evidence and careful consideration of public comments, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that greenhouse gases (GHGs) threaten the public health and welfare of the American people. EPA also finds that GHG emissions from on-road vehicles contribute to that threat.
GHGs are the primary driver of climate change, which can lead to hotter, longer heat waves that threaten the health of the sick, poor or elderly; increases in ground-level ozone pollution linked to asthma and other respiratory illnesses; as well as other threats to the health and welfare of Americans.
“These long-overdue findings cement 2009’s place in history as the year when the United States Government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution and seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “Business leaders, security experts, government officials, concerned citizens and the United States Supreme Court have called for enduring, pragmatic solutions to reduce the greenhouse gas pollution that is causing climate change. This continues our work towards clean energy reform that will cut GHGs and reduce the dependence on foreign oil that threatens our national security and our economy.”
EPA’s final findings respond to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that GHGs fit within the Clean Air Act definition of air pollutants. The findings do not in and of themselves impose any emission reduction requirements but rather allow EPA to finalize the GHG standards proposed earlier this year for new light-duty vehicles as part of the joint rulemaking with the Department of Transportation.
On-road vehicles contribute more than 23 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions. EPA’s proposed GHG standards for light-duty vehicles, a subset of on-road vehicles, would reduce GHG emissions by nearly 950 million metric tons and conserve 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of model year 2012-2016 vehicles.
EPA’s endangerment finding covers emissions of six key greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride – that have been the subject of scrutiny and intense analysis for decades by scientists in the United States and around the world.
Scientific consensus shows that as a result of human activities, GHG concentrations in the atmosphere are at record high levels and data shows that the Earth has been warming over the past 100 years, with the steepest increase in warming in recent decades. The evidence of human-induced climate change goes beyond observed increases in average surface temperatures; it includes melting ice in the Arctic, melting glaciers around the world, increasing ocean temperatures, rising sea levels, acidification of the oceans due to excess carbon dioxide, changing precipitation patterns, and changing patterns of ecosystems and wildlife.
President Obama and Administrator Jackson have publicly stated that they support a legislative solution to the problem of climate change and Congress’ efforts to pass comprehensive climate legislation. However, climate change is threatening public health and welfare, and it is critical that EPA fulfill its obligation to respond to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that determined that greenhouse gases fit within the Clean Air Act definition of air pollutants.
EPA issued the proposed findings in April 2009 and held a 60-day public comment period. The agency received more than 380,000 comments, which were carefully reviewed and considered during the development of the final findings.
Information on EPA’s findings: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html
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Hey Is Water Vapor A GHG that would fall within the EPA regulations?
Just wondering…
Obama has just done what he could not do in Congress or with the support of the American people. This cannot be allowed to stand.
Your once great country perilously circles the drain. It makes me sad, yet I can afford a condo in Florida now, OH the iron……..nee.
As bad as this is, maybe some good can come out it, because the EPA can be challenged in court. Let the litigation begin.
A day that will live in infamy, when an American government agency decided to declare a natural component of the atmosphere a pollutant it could regulate. We all remember the jokes about taxing the air you breath. Not so funny any more. And the irony: it’s based upon the greatest scientific hooliganism and boosterism we have ever witnessed. Orwell’s vision was too benign.
Bye Bye USA. We aren’t quite as insane up here in Canada … yet. But BC is working at it with dual priced electricity rates that punish people for heating their homes with clean hydro electicity.
Exhaling is now dangerous. This may end up being a good thing. It may well be the one step gone too far. The one that breaks the enviroweenies back. I don’t get it. I can’t see the American population, one that is founded on basic freedoms and rights, putting up with this crap.
One thing I don’t understand is how our southern neighbors allowed a bureaucracy to have this level of jurisdictional power. How can something like this not have to go through Congress?
How, pray tell, did EPA carefully review and consider 380,000 comments in seven months?
Hmm. 54,000 comments per month, about 2,500 comments per business day reviewed since then.
Sure you did, EPA. Sure.
Bruce:
Yes, we aren’t as insane up here.
Unfortunately, I would think if Canada doesn’t fall into step, the punitive measures will be close behind. Me thinks, that’s why Harper hasn’t outright called catastrophic AGW the sham that it is.
Inhofe and Markey (what a rat) at CNN
I pass methane in her general direction.
Does this mean increased taxes or penalties on natural sources of CO2 such as ocean heating, geothermal venting, volcanoes, etc. And, conversely how would the planet look if there was no CO2 in the atmosphere.
The reign of enviro-tyranny will start on a cold note, one of our weather stations is predicting more than a foot of snow across good portions of the northwest quarter of our state.
Many towns in my state will soon forget this ever happened when they get buried in snow starting tonight and then smothered in cold, could be the same in Nebraska, Iowa, and other states.
The Economist after receiving hundreds of posts criticizing its standpoint on “man-made” global warming last week reiterates its position again this week:
The inquiries into the “climategate” e-mails and files may find that some of the researchers fell short of the standards of their calling, or that some of the science in question does not stand up as well as its authors would wish. To think that all action on climate change should cease pending such inquiries, though, is foolish, cynical or both.
Skeptics are “foolish”, “cynical” or “both” and this is from a right wing rag that tried to put a positive spin and brave face on the entire banking crisis defending what are clearly corrupt and under-regulated free markets (Chicago school economics out of control) and that has long promoted innovative financial instruments like “Carbon Credits”.
http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15051965&source=most_commented
So “man-made” global warming is perhaps the most brilliant of scams – it appeals to and has garnered strong support from the financial world (which The Economist represents)…a new way for capitalists to get rich?
AGW is the perfect scam – governments get bigger, the rich get richer, the environmentalists get to feel good about saving the entire planet, meanwhile the average Joe will be left a lot poorer and many more poor will go hungry (but hey that is a good thing – too much meat/food is bad for global warming anyway).
I feel sick
And of course we have new psycho climate porn to boot:
I trust Inhofe for his assessment that ClimateGate con not be stopped.
However, it will be a massive struggle.
They are executing the First Global Revolution here.
There intentions are wicked than wicked and we must stop them via the courts and the next elections.
Think of it as a lesson “Maintaining Democracy under the threat of a Global takeover by an evil empire”. Maybe that will put the urgency of this matter in the right perspective.
Dec 7 – Anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbour and now the EPA declares carbon dioxide endangers human health. A date that will live in infamy. What a damning indictment of the world’s education systems when crap like this passes for unassailable science. How did the world’s most open and accountable political system put one over on its citizens like this? The only hope is that Climategate makes climate science more open and accountable and that honest research disproves this crazy jihad against CO2. Then let the class action lawsuits begin.
As mentioned above… why did they omit the main GHG that is water? After all I have seen reproducible evidence that most land-based species will die when subjected to a 100% water-based environment. This stuff is lethal.
Just how politicised is your bureaucracy? The timing of this anouncement suggest that it is exceptionally political.
I smell a revolution.
Really.
I do.
Tell you what. I promise not to laugh if all the USians promise not to lecture me ever again about how their constitution prevents hijacking by special interests.
JF
How clever to generally minimize CO2’s effect by surrounding it with GHGs that are toxic but only a minor part of GHG concerns. This whole AGW thing is the biggest anti American project ever dreamt of and here are her own people taken in by it – not even slowed down by the revelation of the largely cooked data of AGW political science.
Aside from doing something so that President Obama doesn’t show up at COP15 completely empty handed, there is one word that best describes this action by the EPA (”a day that will live in infamy” is fully justified):
Blackmail; i.e.:
Sending a message to the US Congress that they better pass a draconian ”cap & tax” package, or EPA will make make them regret not doing so; by incredibly expensive and pervasive enforcement of ruthless CHG regulations via the Clean Air Act.
mbabbitt’s comment was on the mark:
I fear George Orwell was an optomist. . . .
CEI will file suit to block EPA endangerment finding.
http://cei.org/news-release/2009/12/07/cei-will-file-suit-block-epa-endangerment-finding
America. The Home of the Brave, yes. The Land of the Free, not so much. Good luck in court.