EPA Lays The Smack Down With Greenhouse Gas Ruling
Climate change denialists pounced last year when EPA officially ruled that greenhouse gases are a pollutant that threaten human health and the environment. But while many just made a stink, others petitioned (read: irrationally begged) the agency to reverse its decision.
Yesterday, EPA laid the smack down and rejected petitions from all 10 groups that filed.
Let's take a moment to examine this ragtag bunch of "silenced" dissenters. We may find some familiar names:
1) The Ohio Coal Association and Peabody Energy, the largest private-sector coal mining company in the world
2) Two dirty energy front groups. One is the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has received funding from the charitable arm of Koch Industries, the nation's largest privately-held energy company; and the other is the Coalition for Responsible Regulation, a mysterious group with shadowly connections to Salvoy Chemicals, the leading producer of soda ash and hydrogen peroxide.
3) The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, famous friend to Big Business, foe to the environment, and, more and more, a bunch of Tea Party wingnuts.
4) The State of Texas and The Commonwealth of Virginia. Leading the charge is none other than climate change enemy #1 Ken Cuccinelli
The swift ruling was coupled with a decisive response from EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, who said, "The endangerment finding is based on years of science from the U.S. and around the world. These petitions—based as they are on selectively edited, out-of-context data and a manufactured controversy—provide no evidence to undermine our determination."
To which climate change enemy #2, Senator James Inhofe, huffed, "EPA chose ... to dismiss legitimate concerns about data quality, transparency, and billions of dollars of taxpayer-funded science as products of 'conspiracies.' Rather, such ad hominem attacks are products of closed-mindedness and ultimately harm EPA's reputation and legal standing in court."
Considering the overwhelming scientific evidence that supports the fact that manmade climate change is a grave global challenge (which led many to greet EPA's initial declaration with a "What took you so long?") and the self-interest of many of the accusers, it's no big shock that EPA has batted down the petitions. But their move has luckily come at a particularly valuable time in the movement.
That's because when EPA declared greenhouse gases were a pollutant, it was more than just a symbolic move; it paved the way for the agency to set forceful guidelines on carbon dioxide emissions from coal-burning power plants, oil and gas refineries and other big emissions sources, since they could now be covered under the Clean Air Act.
Now that the Senate's climate change bill, which would have led to more sweeping regulations in this vein, has died, it's essential that the muscle we do have to curb global warming remains flexed. More than that, it's pivotal that, even despite the Senate, our government is making clear it's not going to lie down and do nothing about climate change.
Sorry, Big Oil, Ken Cuccinelli, and Texas: It isn't.
Photo credit: Nicolas Espinosa/Wikimedia Commons
Nikki Gloudeman
is a senior fellow at Mother Jones magazine where she writes about the environment and other topics.
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