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April 2009

Vol. 14, No. 17 Week of April 26, 2009

US Congress weighs global warming bill

EPA says April 17 it will use Clean Air Act to address 6 gases; congressional hearings begin on revolutionary environmental bill

Dina Cappiello

Associated Press Writer

The last time Congress passed major environmental laws, acid rain was destroying lakes and forests, polluted rivers were on fire and smog was choking people in some cities.

The fallout from global warming, while subtle now, could eventually be even more dire. That prospect has Democrats pushing legislation that rivals in scope the nation’s landmark anti-pollution laws.

Lawmakers began hearings the week of April 20 on an energy and global warming bill that could revolutionize how the country produces and uses energy. It also could reduce, for the first time, the pollution responsible for heating up the planet.

If Congress balks, the Obama administration has signaled a willingness to use decades-old clean air laws to impose tough new regulations for motor vehicles and many industrial plants to limit their release of climate-changing pollution.

The Environmental Protection Agency on April 17 said rising sea levels, increased flooding and more intense heat waves and storms that come with climate change are a threat to public health and safety. The agency predicted that warming will worsen other pollution problems such as smog.

“The EPA concluded that our health and our planet are in danger. Now it is time for Congress to create a clean energy cure,” said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., one of the sponsors of the American Clean Energy and Security Act.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, opposed action by EPA, saying in an April 17 statement: “The Clean Air Act was not designed to address carbon emissions, and is, at best, a very blunt instrument. I’m disappointed the administration has chosen to act on its own.”

She said American families were likely to pay several thousand dollars a year in higher energy costs through a mandatory cap, and said climate change should be tackled through an open and deliberative congressional process.

“Congress should be given the time to thoroughly consider the benefits and risks of legislation to curb emissions,” Murkowski said.

First major recent law

If passed, it would be the first major environmental protection law in almost two decades. In addition to attempting to solve a complex environmental problem associated with global warming, the bill also seeks to wean the nation off foreign oil imports and to create a new clean-energy economy.

“It’s a big undertaking,” said the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Waxman and Markey presented their 648-page bill in March.

From 1969 to 1980, Congress passed more than a dozen environmental bills tackling everything from air and water pollution and garbage, as well as protections for fisheries, marine mammals and endangered species. In 1990, the Clean Air Act was overhauled to address the problem of acid rain created by the sulfur dioxide released from coal-burning power plants.

“We had two decades of extraordinary legislation and almost two decades of nothing,” said Richard Lazarus, a Georgetown University law professor and author of “The Making of Environmental Law.” “If this one passes, it will certainly be an outburst.”

There are many reasons why Congress’ chances to succeed in passing global warming legislation are improved this year, but by no means assured.

Pent up demand

After President George W. Bush did little about global warming in his two terms, there is “a lot pent up demand” for action on climate, said William Ruckelshaus, the first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Both the Democratic-controlled Congress and President Barack Obama agree that legislation is needed to limit emissions of greenhouse gases and radically alter the nation’s energy sources. They want to pass a bill by the end of the year.

“For the first time ever, we have got the political actors all aligned,” said Lazarus. “That is not enough to get a law passed, but that is a huge start. We haven’t been close to that before.”

Unlike the 1970s, when the first environmental laws passed nearly unanimously, Republicans are opposed. They question whether industry and taxpayers can afford to take on global warming during an economic recession.

Then there is the question whether the public will have the appetite to accept higher energy prices for a benefit that will not be seen for many years. Climate change ranks low on many voters’ priority lists.

Every year since 2001 has been among the 10 warmest years on record. Sea ice in the Arctic and glaciers worldwide are melting.

Issues now are subtle

But the problems are not as apparent as they were in the 1970s, or even the early 1990s, when Congress addressed acid rain and depletion of the ozone layer.

“If carbon dioxide were brown, we wouldn’t have the same problem,” said Gus Speth, who organized the Natural Resources Defense Council in 1970. “But it’s a subtle issue. ... The problems are chronic not acute, and it is largely invisible to people unless they’re reading the newspaper or checking the glaciers or going to the South Pole.”

In 1969, oil and debris in the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland burst into flames, an incident that led to the passage of the Clean Water Act. That same year, a blowout at an offshore oil platform off Santa Barbara, Calif., spilled millions of gallons of oil onto beaches. And long before that, a smog episode in Donora, Pa., in 1948 killed 20, sparking a crusade against air pollution.

“There was so much evidence — sort of smell, touch and feel kind of evidence — that the environment was really in trouble,” said Ruckelshaus. “We had real problems, real pollution problems that people could see on the way to work. And there were rivers catching on fire and terrible smog events.”

With climate, “you are asking people to worry about their grandchildren or their children,” he said. “That is why it will be so tough to get something like this through.”

—Petroleum News contributed to this story





US moves toward climate change rules

The U.S. Environment Protection Agency on April 17 declared that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases sent off by cars and many industrial plants “endanger public health and welfare,” setting the stage for regulating them under federal clean air laws.

The action by EPA marks the first step toward requiring power plants, cars and trucks to curtail their release of climate-changing pollution, especially carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said while the agency is prepared to move forward with regulations under the Clean Air Act, the Obama administration would prefer that Congress addressed the climate issue through “cap-and-trade” legislation limiting pollution that can contribute to global warming.

In announcing the proposed finding, Jackson said the EPA analysis “confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations” and warrants steps to curtail it.

The April 17 action by the EPA triggered a 60-day comment period before the agency issues a final endangerment ruling. That would be followed by a proposal on how to regulate the emissions.

Six gases listed

The agency said in its finding that “in both magnitude and probability, climate change is an enormous problem” and that carbon dioxide and five other gases “that are responsible for it endanger public health and welfare within the meaning of the Clean Air Act.”

The EPA concluded that the science pointing to man-made pollution as a cause of global warming is “compelling and overwhelming.” It also said tailpipe emissions from motor vehicles contribute to climate change.

The EPA action was prompted by a Supreme Court ruling two years ago that said greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act and must be regulated if found to be a danger to human health or public welfare.

The Bush administration strongly opposed using the Clean Air Act to address climate change and stalled on producing the so-called “endangerment finding” demanded by the high court in its April 2007 ruling.

The court case, brought by the state of Massachusetts, focused only on emissions from automobiles. But it is widely assumed that if the EPA must regulate emissions from cars and trucks, it will have no choice but to control similar pollution from power plants and industrial sources.

In addition to carbon dioxide, a product of burning fossil fuels, the EPA finding covers five other emissions that scientists believe are warming the earth when they concentrate in the atmosphere: Methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6).

—The Associated Press

Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistrubuted.

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