EPA's Carbon Decision Gives Obama Copenhagen Tool-Official declared Co2 is dangerous to mankind.-Backlash fear of expensive energy and cut jobs

Lisa Jackson announcing the new US government position that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health.


US Environmental Protection Agency Director Lisa Jackson talks about a new Obama administration position that greenhouse gasses are a threat to public health at the EPA in Washington Monday.


The US Environmental Protection Agency has formally declared greenhouses gases a danger to human health.

The announcement means the organisation can bring in regulations regarding the gases without legislation from US Congress, where President Obama's plans to combat climate change have stalled previously.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said it meant there were "no more excuses for delay" and the government would "not ignore science or the law any longer".

Political, costly, and likely to choke off growth. That's how the energy industry and companies that use a lot of energy describe the Environmental Protection Agency's announcement that greenhouse gas emissions are a danger and must be regulated.

The Supreme Court declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are pollutants and could be regulated under the Clean Air Act in 2007, but oil companies, utilities and large manufacturers had anticipated new federal laws long before that.

Almost all energy and energy intense industries hope that Congress will step in with new climate laws, namely through a cap-and-trade system that limits greenhouse gas emissions, but allows companies to buy or sell emissions credits.

If not, companies say, jobs will be lost, an economic recovery will be hamstrung and everyone will pay more for energy.

Here's what some are saying about the EPA announcement:

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U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Chamber President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue said EPA regulations could lead to "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 devil will be in the details," Donohue said.

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National Association of Manufacturers

Keith McCoy, Vice President of Energy and Resources Policy, said an EPA regulation on its own would make energy more expensive and force manufacturers to cut jobs.

"Unemployment is hovering at 10 percent and many manufacturers are struggling to stay in business," McCoy said. "It is doubtful that the endangerment finding will achieve its stated goal, but it is certain to come at a huge cost to the economy."

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The American Petroleum Institute

The main lobbying group for oil and gas companies called the EPA announcement a political maneuver, burnishing President Obama's environmental record ahead of the Copenhagen climate summit. The Clean Air Act was not meant to regulate greenhouse gases, said API President Jack Gerard.

U.S. oil and natural gas companies spent $58 billion between 2000 and 2008 on technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Gerard said. That's "more than either the federal government or all other U.S.-based private industry combined," he said.

OBAMA administration declare C02 dangerous.

The Obama administration adopted its climate change plan B today, formally declaring carbon dioxide a public danger so that it can cut greenhouse gas emissions even without the agreement of a reluctant Senate.

The timing of the announcement – in the opening hours of the UN's Copenhagen climate change summit – prevents Barack Obama from arriving at the talks without concrete evidence that America will do its bit to cut the emissions that cause global warming.

"Climate change has now become a household issue," said Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), adding that the evidence of climate change was real and increasingly alarming. "This administration will not ignore science or the law any longer, nor will we ignore the responsibility we owe to our children and our grandchildren."

The announcement gives the EPA a legal basis for capping emissions from major sources such as coal power plants, as well as cars. Jackson said she hoped it would help to spur a deal in Copenhagen.

The EPA action had been seen as a backstop should Congress fail to pass climate change law. Obama and other officials had repeatedly said they would prefer to pass legislation, but that prospect has grown increasingly remote. The House of Representatives narrowly passed a climate change bill in June, but the proposals have stalled in the Senate.

Jackson said the EPA's regulations, which would come into effect from next spring, would not be too onerous, applying only to facilities emitting more than 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

The oil and manufacturing industries, which have opposed climate change action, said the move was overly politicised, and warned that the new regulations would be tied up in lawsuits.

The US Chamber of Commerce, also sceptical on global warming, said the move would hurt the economy. "An endangerment finding from the EPA 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," said Thomas Donohue, the chamber's president.

Jackson is to address the Copenhagen meeting on Wednesday, while Obama will join more than 100 other world leaders in the Danish capital on the final day of the conference, on 18 December.

The endangerment declaration dates from a supreme court decision in 2007 ordering the EPA to make a ruling on whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions were a pollutant subject to the Clean Air Act of the 1970s.

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