http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0829-02.htm
Published on Friday,
August 29, 2003 by the Knight Ridder News Service
Going Backwards
Bush Administration: Carbon Dioxide Not a Pollutant
by Seth Borenstein
CAPTION:
"'CO2 IS NOT A POLLUTANT'
Environmentalists accused President Bush on August 28, 2003
of further undermining international efforts to curb global
warming with a likely ruling that carbon dioxide is not a
pollutant. Carbon dioxide occurs as a natural component of
the atmosphere as well as being a by-product of industrial
processes. Bush is shown during a campaign speech in Saginaw,
Michigan on Sept. 29, 2000 during which he announced proposals
for mandatory reductions in four major pollutants, including
carbon dioxide. Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Reuters"
QUOTE:
"The Earth is round. Elvis is dead. Climate change is happening."
Melissa Carey, Environmental Defense
WASHINGTON - Carbon dioxide, the chief cause of global warming,
cannot be regulated as a pollutant, the Environmental Protection
Agency ruled Thursday.
The decision reverses a 1998 Clinton administration position.
It means that the Bush administration won't be able to use the
Clean Air Act to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from cars.
Had the Bush administration
decided that carbon dioxide is a
pollutant and harmful, it could have required expensive new
pollution controls on new cars and perhaps on power plants,
which together are the main sources of so-called greenhouse
gases.
Environmentalists are
expected to respond by suing the EPA
to try to force it to regulate carbon dioxide. The real fight
is likely to shift to Congress, where some lawmakers are
proposing a new law giving the EPA clear authority to regulate
emissions of gases linked to global warming.
"Refusing
to call greenhouse-gas emissions a pollutant
is like refusing to say that smoking causes lung cancer,"
responded Melissa Carey, a climate policy specialist for
Environmental Defense, a New York-based environmental group.
"The Earth is round. Elvis is dead. Climate change is happening."
EPA General Counsel
Robert Fabricant took the opposite position
in his 12-page decision Thursday. "Because the [Clean Air
Act]
does not authorize regulation to address climate change,"
he wrote, "it follows that [carbon dioxide] and other
[greenhouse gases], as such, are not air pollutants."
Auto industry representatives
lauded Fabricant's position.
"Why
would you regulate a pollutant that is an inert gas
that is vital to plant photosynthesis and that people exhale
when they breathe?" said Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the
Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a Washington-based
industry lobby. "That's not a pollutant."
The Clean Air
Act says the EPA can regulate a substance
if it comes from cars, contributes to air pollution and
"may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health
or welfare." The same law broadly defines an air pollutant
as "any air pollution agent or combination of such agents
which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air."
Sierra Club
senior attorney David Bookbinder, whose suit
prompted Fabricant's decision, said it was simple:
"Anything that people put into the air can be an air
pollutant. The question `Does it do something bad?' "
is what matters.
Copyright 2003 Knight
Ridder
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