The Environmental Protection Agency’s Role in U.S. Climate Policy- A Fifty Year Appraisal

摘要

In 1983, the little-known “Strategic Studies” staff, within the somewhat obscure Office of Policy Analysis in the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), released—at no one’s request—a report entitled Can We Delay a Greenhouse Warming? The report summarized the results of the most current atmospheric temperature and carbon cycle models,1 which showed that due to rising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, global average temperatures could increase by 2 degrees Celsius by the middle of the twenty-first century. This temperature rise, it said, would “likely” be accompanied by “dramatic changes in precipitation and storm patterns and a rise in global average sea levels,” significantly altering agriculture, disrupting environmental and economic conditions, and stressing political institutions.2 The study went on to explore various strategies to slow or limit warming, including some policies that, in retrospect, seem eye-popping for EPA to even have considered internally, let alone discuss in a public report, including a 300% tax on fossil fuels and a ban on both coal and shale oil.