EPA to Impose Global Warming Regulations: Will Congress Intervene?
Nicolas Loris /
President Obama doesn’t want to run the auto industry, but he had to, temporarily of course, to save the economy. And Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Lisa Jackson doesn’t want to regulate carbon dioxide, but the EPA seems intent on moving forward regardless. Fortunately, Congress could shorten the EPA’s long, regulatory leash by amending the Interior-Environment appropriations spending bill early next week.
The Environmental Protection Agency issued a proposed endangerment finding in April, saying that global warming and climate change pose a serious threat to public health and safety and thus almost anything that emits carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases could be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The agency is already targeting the ailing auto industry. New regulations are proposing that the fleet average must reach 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, which will increase the price and decrease the safety of the vehicle.
Earlier in September, Jackson said prefers cap and trade to regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act:
Legislation is so important, because it will combine the most efficient, most economy-wide, least costly (and) least disruptive way to deal with carbon dioxide pollution. We get further faster without top-down regulation.”