The Environmental Protection Agency announced today that they would be proceeding with an endangerment finding on greenhouse gasses. This maneuver gives US climate negotiators a bargaining chip at the ongoing COP15 climate change summit in Copenhagen, but may reduce the chance of establishing global warming legislation in the United States.
Eco Factory reported on the EPA endangerment finding back in May. This is how it works:
The EPA is charged with protecting public health and safety. A large part of that responsibility lies in regulating the creation of toxic pollutants. The EPA revealed in April that they intended to use human-caused climate change research to claim the legal right to regulate greenhouse gases, despite the fact that they don't qualify as pollutants or toxic substances in the same sense as the chemicals regulated before them. This would give the Obama administration the ability to institute a program similar to "cap and trade" without having to work through Congress. Where the cap and trade bill in the Senate would have created a carbon market where businesses could buy and sell carbon allowances, the endangerment finding would asses steep regulatory fees against polluting businesses and auction off allowances that are considerably less expensive. By reducing the number of allowances auctioned each year, the EPA can "lower the cap" of the endangerment auction program similar to what was proposed with cap and trade.
While the endangerment finding was thought to be a faster and more direct route to regulating greenhouse gasses in America, The New York Times speculated that the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would make good on their promises of "extreme legal action" and push back the effective date of the endangerment finding for years, or possibly obtain a ruling against it. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's president claimed that the endangerment finding "could result in a top-down command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project."
"The overwhelming amount of scientific studies show that the threat is real," argued EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson during the endangerment finding press conference this afternoon. "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." Jackson will be traveling to Copenhagen to take part in the two-week COP15 climate change summit.
The endangerment finding may give US negotiator Jonathon Pershing — and later President Barack Obama — extra political footing when bargaining for an ambitious climate change treaty in Copenhagen over the next two weeks. America's previous climate action, the cap and trade bill, has been floundering in the Senate and will not come up again for discussion until spring 2010.
Political analysts at the Wall Street Journal say that this kind of ambition is likely to please the international community, but has infuriated trade groups and congressional Republicans. According to the Edison Electric Group, the EPA finding is likely to impose their tax more narrowly than the Senate bill would have, which will be less fair to the commercial energy and manufacturing sectors that will bear burden first. WSJ also says that the endangerment finding does not have the same staying power that cap-and-trade would have had, and that the president's decision may be seen as an unwillingness to work with congressional Republicans, harming other parts of his agenda.
Senator John Kerry agreed with the industry groups that oppose the EPA endangerment finding, calling it a "blunt instrument" that will pose a bigger problem for American industry and a much steeper cost for the American people than the cap and trade Senate bill he helped craft. An official statement from the White House states that the president rather would have limited greenhouse gasses through traditional Congressional legislation, but has already begun to oversee the EPA's work to form permit requirements for the carbon regulation program the agency announced today.
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