From this page (h/t Dave Hagen)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is inviting comment from all interested parties on options and questions to be considered for possible greenhouse gas regulations under the Clean Air Act. EPA is issuing an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) to gather information and determine how to proceed.
The Advance Notice
The ANPR is one of the steps EPA has taken in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA. The Court found that the Clean Air Act authorizes EPA to regulate tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions if EPA determines they cause or contribute to air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare. The ANPR reflects the complexity and magnitude of the question of whether and how greenhouse gases could be effectively controlled under the Clean Air Act.
The document summarizes much of EPA’s work and lays out concerns raised by other federal agencies during their review of this work. EPA is publishing this notice at this time because it is impossible to simultaneously address all the agencies’ issues and respond to the agency’s legal obligations in a timely manner.
Key Issues for Discussion and Comment in the ANPR:
- Descriptions of key provisions and programs in the CAA, and advantages and disadvantages of regulating GHGs under those provisions;
- How a decision to regulate GHG emissions under one section of the CAA could or would lead to regulation of GHG emissions under other sections of the Act, including sections establishing permitting requirements for major stationary sources of air pollutants;
- Issues relevant for Congress to consider for possible future climate legislation and the potential for overlap between future legislation and regulation under the existing CAA; and,
- Scientific information relevant to, and the issues raised by, an endangerment analysis.
EPA will accept public comment on the ANPR for 120 days following its publication in the Federal Register.
Background
In April 2007, the Supreme Court concluded that GHGs meet the CAA definition of an air pollutant. Therefore, EPA has authority under the CAA to regulate GHGs subject to the endangerment test for new motor vehicles – an Agency determination that GHG emissions from new motor vehicles cause or contribute to air pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.
A decision to regulate GHG emissions for motor vehicles impacts whether other sources of GHG emissions would need to be regulated as well, including establishing permitting requirements for stationary sources of air pollutants.
How to Comment
- Comments should be identified by the following Docket ID Number: EPA-HQ-OAR-2008-0318
- Comments should be submitted by one of the following method
- www.regulations.gov: Follow the on-line instructions for submitting comments.
- Email: a-and-r-Docket@epa.gov
- Fax: 202-566-9744
- Mail: Air and Radiation Docket and Information Center, Environmental Protection Agency, Mailcode: 2822T, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20460. In addition, please mail a copy of your comments on the information collection provisions to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Attn: Desk Officer for EPA, 725 17th St. NW., Washington, DC 20503.
- Hand Delivery: EPA Docket Center, EPA West Building, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Ave., NW, Washington DC, 20004. Such deliveries are only accepted during the Docket’s normal hours of operation, and special arrangements should be made for deliveries of boxed information.
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“In April 2007, the Supreme Court concluded that GHGs meet the CAA definition of an air pollutant. ”
The problem with that statement is a constitutional one. Only Congress or the EPA can define what constitutes a pollutant. The EPA refused to do so; if there was enough votes in Congress to either add various GHGs to the list of pollutants, or to rewrite certain sections of the law itself, all would be well. Now we are in an administrative quandry. What if a future Congress or EPA chief wishes to remove GHGs? Must they now file a complaint in court? How will the EPA treat water vapor? Water vapor, unlike CO2, is not a trace gas. According to the Courts, all GHGs now can be regulated.
Farms benefit from CO2. If reducing CO2 is now a judicial mandate, how will farmers react to the potential yield loss. I know this sounds ridiculous, but the Alarmists now have opened up a Pandora’s Box releasing such nonsense. Circumventing the legislative process may yeild short term political benefits, but create a lot of long term mischief.
Has anyone thought of the idea that since CO2 is food for the plants to tamper with CO2 is to harm the plants? If the Endangered Species Act protects certain species from harm then we should find a plant specie which requires large amount of CO2 to survive and propagate therefore cutting down amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere is a danger to this plant specie survival.
Since water vapour and carbon dioxide are naturally occurring gases in the atmosphere, and both are necessary for life to exist, they cannot be considered to be pollutants.
Will do. I think everyone should pass this along to someone else as well..
I understand that some car emissions are toxic and I sure don’t like breathing them. But CO2 is not one of them. How can one segment of the industrial community be forced to reduce it (via exhaust controls) while another generously pumps it into greenhouses to improve plant growth and health? I think our converters are good enough. And besides, anything more added to the cars we buy while lead to further reductions in gas mileage.
h/t in turn to Ken Shock for his notice, citing
Cooling of Atmosphere Due to CO2 Emission
G. V. CHILINGAR, L. F. KHILYUK, and O. G. SOROKHTIN
Energy Sources, Part A, 30:1–9, 2008
DOI: 10.1080/15567030701568727
a plant specie which requires large amount of CO2 to survive and propagate
Unfortunately, such a plant is very unlikely to exist. Plants that can utilize lower CO2 concentrations would have driven to extinction plants that needed higher CO2 concentrations, by removing CO2 from the atmosphere to the point the plant needing a higher concentration couldn’t survive.
Tax those that exercise… they breathe faster.
Phillip Bratby (09:17:43) : Since water vapour and carbon dioxide are naturally occurring gases in the atmosphere, and both are necessary for life to exist, they cannot be considered to be pollutants.
Actually, sunlight contains a known carcinogen (ultraviolet light). That means that sunlight effectively contains a pollutant. Think about it.
You might argue that regulating sunlight is impossible. Perhaps, but taking a clue from the way marijuana was initially regulated, the EPA could mandate regulation regarding sunlight exposure (like making convertibles illegal).
I think the entire concept of the EPA was faulty from the beginning. It is the most powerful agency in the country not only because it enjoys reduced oversight but it places incredible power in the EPA administrator. DDT was banned by the action of a single individual, the EPA administrator. The EPA is almost a fourth branch of government.
But that is neither here nor there. We’re stuck with it. Fortunately, the EPA at least makes token attempts so we should take advantage of any crumbs scattered by the agency.
It’s quite possible a public response to a Request for Comment will fall on deaf ears but it’s worth a shot.
Another constitutional question might be; what section of the constitution authorizes congress to regulate any emissions?
Phillip Bratby (09:17:43) wrote
Since water vapour and carbon dioxide are naturally occurring gases in the atmosphere, and both are necessary for life to exist, they cannot be considered to be pollutants.
___________
Actually, they probably can fall into the same class of pollutants as sediment, non-point sources, where the substances are naturally occurring, widespread thru out the system and untraceable to a particular point source, but declared a pollutant based on quantity, deleterious to certain beneficial uses (paraphrasing the 1972 Clean Water Act).
However, no body of science has yet definitively shown CO2 to be deleterious to anything under current atmospheric concentrations. Models and speculations are not scientific proof.
David Segesta (10:04:39) : “Another constitutional question might be; what section of the constitution authorizes congress to regulate any emissions?”
The short answer is: none specifically. Just a nit: congress doesn’t regulate is passes acts which are laws — agencies regulate. The long answer is: the EPA is a part of the executive branch and created by Nixon using an executive order. Constitutional sections applicable to the executive branch are the key.
BTW: if you read the Constitution carefully, you will note that at best it only mentions what laws cannot be passed and never mentions which ones can. This is also general in law where actions are banned and few are mandated.
DAV,
From what I gather, a pollutant is a substance or action which affects nature, based upon a frame of reference, not visa versa. Therefore, how does something such as sunlight pollute based solely on the reason that is can cause cancer in humans?
Commerce clause. (Article 1, Section 8, clause 3) “The Congress shall have power […]
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes; […]” Any item which is part of the public commons (such as air) is regulatable under this clause. Especially as the only other option to regulate such things would be punitive tort actions.
That’s backwards thinking. Plants that utilize lower CO2 concentrations by definition use less, not more. This is why desert-hardy plants, despite requiring far less water, don’t out-breed high-water utilization plants in high-water regions. They’re poorly adapted. In this case, the use of lower amounts of CO2 does not equate to higher growth rates in high CO2 environments.
Since human beings and animals emit CO2 , we may
have to introduce mandatory euthenasia for a certain
percentage of animals and humans. This may be advantageous for environmentlists and democrats
who want to limit the cost of Medicare and Social
Security and reduce the world’s populations .If this
occurs , I would recommend that the first ones to be subject to euthenasia would be environmentalists,
followed by the hollywood elite , members of congress , and members of the Supreme Court .
Went to the EPA site in the link provided at the start of this posting. Found the PDF file for the ANPR — all 570 pages worth! A little reading is in order so that any response is properly tuned to the EPA position.
If you do the math, you’ll find that the average person exhales roughly the same amount of CO2 as a car driven 12-15000 miles per year, something like 7 tons per person per year, assuming a sedimentary lifestyle (no frequent vigorous exercise). So, will the EPA regulate human emissions? If not, why not? I’m not advocating that they do, just pointing out the ridiculousness of this. What about pet emissions? In Europe, doctors are being asked to encourage their patients to limit themselves to 2 kids to reduce their “carbon footprint”, should the EPA also put a limit on population growth?
Yes. IConrad is correct. Thus Govenment has no limits since everything touches air or water or could maybe do so. The constitution is therefore toilet paper. Politcal power comes from the end of a gun. Bwahaha
Will the last person leaving the planet please turn off the light.
jim;
Nobody asked if it was a good idea. It was asked where the power was derived from. That is all.
If anyone is going to take us at all seriously we have to drop the paranoid conspiracy schtick and actually take to at least recognizing the existence of our counterpart’s arguments.
The simple answer to the commerce clause claim is then to ask it be demonstrated what damages have been done by CO2.
The real problem here is the legal definition per the CAA which has been reinterpreted to include CO2 as a pollutant, and thus open to regulation via the commerce clause as it is a negative externality — that is to say, it is a part of the “mercantile commerce system”.
Pick your battles and fight them with sense, not venom.
In other cases the influence of “out of country” emissions was minimal or easy to address (e.g. Canadian SO2 emissions from Ontario) by bilateral treaty.
All the EPA did was to set targets in the atmosphere where people live at ground level. Fixed sources were dealt with to help meet these goals. Complex and full of politics but easy compared to CO2. Even if we accept the climate models, what should the target be? And if the global average is the problem, then any EPA regulation cannot impact this directly.
The California/New England regulations are only focussed on fixed sources (power plants) and not on home furnaces, cars, small commerical buildings etc.
The whole thing will rapidly become a nightmare of command and control regulation or be restricted to an onerous and ineffective requirement for electric power generation only.
OT So Cal just got hit with a major earthquake not more than 2 minutes ago don’t know the magnitude yet. Scary
Matt Annecharico (10:39:26) : From what I gather, a pollutant is a substance or action which affects nature, based upon a frame of reference, not visa versa. Therefore, how does something such as sunlight pollute based solely on the reason that is can cause cancer in humans?
No need to be pedantic. I said “effectively contains a pollutant.” One meaning of effectively: “For all practical purposes; in effect” meaning, of course, “just as if.” One possible effect of a pollutant (perhaps even a basis for calling it one) is its carcinogenic properties.
What about the oceans? Up to 200 miles out is US government jurisdiction thus the government is responsible for the ocean co2 outgassing of that part. Add in the Great Lakes and all the surface waters under US regulation, and that a whoppin big amount of “pollutin” being perpetrated by good old Uncle Sam.
Not to mention the amounts of co2 expelled by plant matter decomposition and forest fires.
Who answers for that?
Someone might bring up Ross McKittrick’s variable tax rate with the scale pegged to the temperature rise actually measured from increased co2 in the atmosphere. That would be a good suggestion for the EPA regarding steps to be taken to mitigate co2 induced “climate change”.
James H – that is exactly what I was going to point out. I think this is a possible end run to enact population controls on the world. Paul Ehrlich thought that any population over 1 billion was “pollution.” Thus, 5/6 ths of us are essentially “pollution” and should be eliminated from the planet. Soylent Green for anyone?