Bush administration makes it official: No GHG regs in response to court case

摘要

The Bush administration made it all but official last week that it would not take any direct action to address greenhouse gas emissions while it remains in office until January 2009. The Environmental Protection Agency issued a public comment document Friday which will effectively delay any climate change-regulations under the Clean Air Act until the next president takes office. The document is the latest chapter in EPA's effort - which has been riddled with White House interference, according to critics - to respond to a landmark 2007 Supreme Court decision on global warming. The decision in Massachusetts v. EPA said that greenhouse gases are "air pollutants" under the decades-old law. The court said that if EPA found that the heat-trapping gases affected public health or welfare, the agency would have to regulate them. The Massachusetts ruling only referred to automobile tailpipes, but the 564-page "Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" that EPA released Friday echoed the views of senior EPA officials that once one part of the law is triggered, new regulations would spread to other areas of the law. Such performance standards for power plants, oil refineries, heavy industry, and other large emitters could eventually be adopted, the ANPRM said.