It's Official: EPA Says Greenhouse Gas Emissions Are Harmful

by Katherine Gustafson · 2009-12-07 11:05:00 UTC
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The Environmental Protection Agency today announced officially that greenhouse gases damage public health and the environment and therefore threaten the welfare of the American people. EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson made the administration's new perspective public today at a press conference timed to coincide with the start of the global climate change conference in Copenhagen.

Jackson made reference to the so-called "climategate" scandal that has broken out lately in response to the theft of emails from a global climate research institution. "It's time that we let the science speak for itself," she said in her remarks. "In making this finding, we relied on decades of sound, peer-reviewed, extensively evaluated scientific data."

In response to a question on the issue stated "there is nothing in the hacked email that undermines the science on which this decision is based. It is important to contextualize those emails," she continued. "That's one thread of one data set ...[among]... thousands of threads, and all of them reach the conclusion that climate change is happening and is caused by man-made emissions."

Today's announcement did not include any new requirements for industry, but it sets the groundwork for the implementation of the new emissions standards for cars and trucks that President Obama announced in the spring. Any way you slice it, this is positive news, and it's great to see the Obama administration making good on its vow to put science back in its rightful place.

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng

Katherine Gustafson
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