White House: No Greenhouse Gas Regulation

Citing Effects On U.S. Economy, Bush Passes Global Warming Problem To Next Administration

(AP)  The Bush administration on Friday rejected regulating greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, saying it would cause too many job losses.

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."

[Gary Kempf]

Rafterman1

So very true!

[rafterman1]

"Bush Passes Global Warming Problem To Next Administration"

Along with the national debt, high gas prices, war dead, maimed soldiers and reduction in international prestige.

[billpl-2009]

"2) Global warming has been proven to the satisfaction of any reasonable, intelligent person." Posted by jimfinster

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

[billpl-2009]

"Bush Passes Global Warming Problem To Next Administration...." Posted by XmanBorg

passing gas is one thing he is good at

[yongamerica]

this is another example of Bush''s gut science.

[jimfinster]

Good science is something you can prove without a doubt and Global Warming made by man can''''t be proven.

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.

[jimfinster]

on_alert247


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?

[ubrew12]

dmw1167 said: "Good science is something you can prove without a doubt and Global Warming made by man can''t be proven. "
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.

[on_alert247]

Jim,

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.

[on_alert247]

Jim,

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.

[jimfinster]

on_alert247:



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?

[jimfinster]

also take into consideration all the "jobs" of the "scientists" that will lose all their grants and jobs if they were to confirm that Global Warming in nothing more than a natural phenomenon. There is money and power in continuing the fear factor of this doom and gloom.

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.

[on_alert247]

Ubrew,
The problem with your explanation is that the satellite data is not measuring the temperature of the ice.

[jimfinster]

Jim,

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."

[stick1770]

also take into consideration all the "jobs" of the "scientists" that will lose all their grants and jobs if they were to confirm that Global Warming in nothing more than a natural phenomenon. There is money and power in continuing the fear factor of this doom and gloom.

[stick1770]

Yeah you''re all right, we are going to forever ruin the earth in the 100yrs of industry we''ve had. Even though the Earth has been through a million times worse natural events than we will ever be able to recreate. The CO2 levels have been extremely higher than they will be at the peak of our industry and yet the earth has somehow without our assistance coped and came back to a balance. But oh no you Global Warming freaks want to play God or something and save every bug and bacteria, restrict our freedoms and have us go live in tents. The planet continues to evolve and handle any problem we through at it. The problem is we have a bunch of idiots that want to keep the earth exactly like it is and never have it change in any way. You ever think that we are fighting the bigger battle of stopping the natural evolution of our planet? Next thing you know some nut will say we''re headed for an ice age and are all going to lose ground to glaciers then we will be pumping CO2 into the air to warm the planet. Why not just go about our lives and let nature take it''s course. Go play god somewhere else like Mars.

[on_alert247]

Jim,

GISS is not based on satellite data.

[jimfinster]

GISS is a reworked data set based on rural and urban adjustments that have been determined to be contaminated by poorly sited equipment in cities.

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.

[jimfinster]

on_alert247:

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.

[ubrew12]

on_alert247 said: "You''re still dancing around the fact that temperatures have decreased across a vast area of the [Antarctic]... I don''t care how you account for the entropy. "
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).