WASHINGTON, July 11, 2008
White House: No Greenhouse Gas Regulation
Citing Effects On U.S. Economy, Bush Passes Global Warming Problem To Next Administration
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(CBS/iStockphoto)
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Interactive Global Warming The greenhouse effect, a look at the Kyoto Protocol and a history of the Earth's climate.
In a 588-page federal notice, the Environmental Protection Agency made no finding on whether global warming poses a threat to people's health, reversing an earlier conclusion at the insistence of the White House and officially kicking any decision on a solution to the next president and Congress.
The White House on Thursday rejected EPA's conclusion three weeks earlier that the 1970 Clean Air Act "can be both workable and effective for addressing global climate change." Instead, EPA said Friday that law is "ill-suited" for dealing with climate change.
This contrasts sharply with the tone of statements President Bush made at the just-concluded G-8 summit of leading industrialized nations in Toyako, Japan. The United States at that meeting joined other summit partners in embracing a policy declaration to seek a 50 percent reduction in global greenhouse gases by 2050.
In a major setback to the administration, the Supreme Court ruled last year that the government has authority under the Clean Act to regulate greenhouse gases as a pollutant. Bush has consistently opposed that option.
Supporters of regulating greenhouse gases could get only 38 votes in the 100-member Senate last month. The House has held several hearings on the problem but no votes on any bill addressing it. The two major presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, have endorsed variations of the approach rejected by the Senate.
In its voluminous document, the EPA laid out a buffet of options on how to reduce greenhouse gases from cars, ships, trains, power plants, factories and refineries.
"One point is clear: the potential regulation of greenhouse gases under any portion of the Clean Air Act could result in unprecedented expansion of EPA authority that would have a profound effect on virtually every sector of the economy and touch every household in the land," EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said in a preface to the 588-page federal notice Friday.
EPA said that it encountered resistance from the Agriculture, Commerce, Energy and Transportation departments, as well as the White House, that made it "impossible" to respond in a timely fashion to the Supreme Court decision.
"Our agencies have serious concerns with this suggestion because it does not fairly recognize the enormous - and, we believe, insurmountable - burdens, difficulties, and costs, and likely limited benefits, of using the Clean Air Act" to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, the secretaries of the four agencies wrote to the White House July 9.
Friday's action caps months of often tense negotiations between EPA scientists and the White House over how to address global warming under the major federal air pollution law.
The document released Friday is much more cautious than a determination made in December by the agency that found greenhouse gases endangered health and welfare, and it also appears to reverse findings of drafts released in May and June that found the Clean Air Act could be an effective tool for reducing greenhouse gases.
"EPA's approach to this has been completely thrown out by the White House, which is only attempting to stall any kind of clean up," said Frank O'Donnell," president of Clean Air Watch, an environmental advocacy group. "It sounds like the Bush administration is trying to ignore the Supreme Court and to pretend it doesn't exist."
Rep. Edward Markey, chairman of the House Select Committee on Global Warming, called the administration's findings "the bureaucratic equivalent of saying that the dog ate your homework."
"The White House has taken an earnest attempt by their own climate experts to respond to the Supreme Court's mandate to address global warming pollution and turned it into a Frankenstein's monster," said Markey, D-Mass.
However, representatives of industry still expressed concern Friday over some of the suggestions included in the document.
"Our point on this is that EPA has set forth a road map which literally throws the entire way which we manage the environment and economy in complete turmoil," said Bill Kovacs, vice president of the Environment, Technology and Regulatory Affairs Division at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who had not seen the version released Friday.
"When we saw the first draft it clearly said we could make it work," Kovacs said. "We want them to say it is clearly the inefficient way to go."
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See all 92 CommentsSo very true!
Along with the national debt, high gas prices, war dead, maimed soldiers and reduction in international prestige.
It''s been said "a genius can make sense out of complete non-sense"
True, but it still takes an idiot to believe it....and there''s no shortage of them
passing gas is one thing he is good at
Posted by dmw1167
1) You clearly are not a scientist, as it is extremely rare to prove ANYTHING without a doubt.
2) Global warming has been proven to the satisfaction of any reasonable, intelligent person.
I do not think you to be correct.
Bottom Line:
NASA states that the last 10 years are WARMING, not cooling as you earlier stated. In fact, they note 8 of the past 10 years to be the warmest on record!
Now, what part of this to you want to argue with?
Newtonian Physics is as close as ANYTHING in science has ever been proven without a doubt. It held for 300 years, and was overturned by Einsteinian Physics. Yes, this means that EVERY prediction of Newtonian Physics is wrong, though only by a small amount. Is Einsteinian Physics then the ''truth''? Proven without a doubt? Physicists know better that to go down THAT path again. Too bad you don''t.
Your post only reveals your ignorance about science.
I think that puts John Christy is the same company then. I happen to agree with him. GHG''s are not the primary reason for the recent warming.
GISS is not satellite data. Read the indexing method here: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/1996/Hansen_etal_1.html
According to GISS, 2005 is warmest year on the chart at 0.62C NOT 1998 at 0.57C. According to UAH-MSU, 1998 is the warmest year at 0.514C with 2005 at 0.339C. Not exactly apples-to-apples.
From the GISS website:
"Global warming stopped in 1998," has become a recent mantra of those who wish to deny the reality of human-caused global warming. The continued rapid increase of the five-year running mean temperature exposes this assertion as nonsense. In reality, global temperature jumped two standard deviations above the trend line in 1998 because the "El Niqo of the century" coincided with the calendar year, but there has been no lessening of the underlying warming trend.
These guys actually ARE rocket scientists, LOL. And you?
Posted by Stick1770
NASA scientists are govt employees, and have jobs regardless. I know this "lose their grants" idea is popular with the rightwing bunch, but it is just not factual.
The problem with your explanation is that the satellite data is not measuring the temperature of the ice.
GISS is not based on satellite data.
Posted by on_alert247
Below is copied from the GISS website:
"Goddard Institute researchers used temperature data from weather stations on land, satellite measurements of sea ice temperature since 1982 and data from ships for earlier years."
GISS is not based on satellite data.
Posted by on_alert247
This is not really correct. True, the early measurements starting in 1880 are a little crude. But for many years now they have been using sophisticated measuring systems, including satellite data. Go to the GISS website and study how and what they do.
You may or may not have valid points. But what is your expertise in this field?
I would rely on NASA for this type of data. They have the best and brightest scientists available, and many many years of experience in this area.
Anything that can change phase as it heats will do so, and until it is done changing phase, its temperature will remain constant. Once it is done, further heating will result in warming. Why then, given all the ice and water in rough equilibrium in Antartica, would one expect it to warm? One would expect it to MELT, and the mass data from gravity measurements on polar satellites shows it IS melting. The data you posted on Antartica temperature measurements showed no statistically significant temperature movement over the decades, compared to its huge seasonal swings in temperature. The conclusions of YOUR PAPER indicate "the majority of the continent shows no significant trend'', which one can SEE from the plots in the paper.
I don''t know what this has to do with entropy accounting. Place a themocouple in an ice-water bath over a stove and you''ll measure no increase in sensible temperature. Entropy increases as heat is absorbed NOT through sensible temperature increase but through ice melting into water (phase change).
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