Thursday, April 16, 2009

White House completes review of EPA "endangerment" finding on global warming

The White House Office of Management and Budget reports that it completed its review yesterday of EPA’s proposed finding that greenhouse gases pose a threat to health and the environment. I think this means we could expect the announcement at any time – perhaps as soon as tomorrow. (Or perhaps as late as Earth Day – April 22.) It will be a landmark moment in environmental history. It’s the first step in creating a comprehensive, federal climate change policy. This ought to make a sometimes balky Congress get serious about doing something. One thing is pretty clear: if Congress doesn’t act, the Obama administration will begin to take action on global warming...Clean Air Watch

Bureaucratic micromanagement of the economy, all in the name of fighting global warming, would likely be the end result of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) endangerment finding on greenhouse gases. The endangerment finding is the first step in a long regulatory process that could lead to EPA requiring different regulations and units of emissions requirements for each gadget that emits carbon dioxide. The first target would be automobiles, but the EPA’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) suggested regulations of almost everything that moves, including new regulations smaller items such lawnmowers and forklifts. The ANPR also suggests putting speed limiters on large trucks on the table as a means of reducing carbon dioxide and even suggested sharkskin boats oozing bubbles to reduce emissions from the shipping industry. You can’t make this stuff up...The Foundry

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