WHY  PRESIDENT  OBAMA WON’T SIGN UP TO GLOBAL WARMING REDUCTION AT COPENHAGEN

 

Straight from the source

Millions of Jobs Threatened by EPA Petition Environmental Groups Call Obama Administration’s Bluff On Global Warming

Washington, DC, December 2, 2009- Environmental pressure groups today petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to set economy-crushing greenhouse gas regulations under the Clean Air Act.

In their petition, the Center for Biological Diversity and 350.org asked the EPA to set a National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act.  Although the petition is likely to be denied, it will then be litigated in federal court.  The Competitive Enterprise Institute has warned repeatedly that a NAAQS for CO2 would be inescapable if the EPA goes ahead with its Endangerment Finding that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare and would have ruinous economic consequences.     

“Stabilizing carbon dioxide levels at 350 parts per million as demanded by the petition, when atmospheric levels are already above 385 ppm and rising, would require the equivalent of a global economic depression sustained over several decades,” said CEI Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis.  “Tens of millions of jobs have thus been put at stake by EPA’s decision to use the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.”

“Even some environmental pressure groups recognize that setting a NAAQS for CO2 would be economically ruinous and therefore wildly unpopular with voters,” added Myron Ebell, CEI Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy.  “But it’s inevitable that federal courts will require EPA to do just that.  The only solution is for Congress to act.  Congress should pass Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s bill, H. R. 391, to prohibit the EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.”

“The Obama Administration tried to bully the Congress into passing cap-and-trade legislation by threatening to regulate greenhouse gas emissions with the EPA, but it has set in motion a process that it cannot control,” said William Yeatman, CEI Energy Policy Analyst.

Lewis also noted that CEI has said from day one – in our comment on EPA’s July 2008 Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, our comment on EPA’s April 2009 Endangerment Proposal, our comment on EPA’s September 2009 Motor Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards Proposal, and in columns about Massachusetts  v. EPA when the case was still pending – that an endangerment finding under Sec. 202 of the Clean Air Act would satisfy the endangerment test in Sec. 108 and thus trigger a NAAQS rulemaking.

Also on Wednesday, CEI filed an emergency petition with EPA with new material added to re-open the Endangerment Finding, in the wake of the burgeoning Climategate fraud scandal.  It has been reported that EPA plans to finalize the Finding before President Obama flies to Copenhagen next week to attend the United Nations global warming negotiations.