Two years after the Supreme Court directed the Environmental Protection Agency to determine if greenhouse gases were a threat to public health and the environment, the EPA formally concluded Friday that carbon dioxide and five other gases should be declared pollutants that could be regulated under the Clean Air Act.
The EPA’s findings aren’t surprising; most everyone knew these gases—carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride—were harmful. Those who denied it were simply denying the reality of climate change. Unfortunately for us, men and women from that pack of stubborn detractors ran the federal government for the last eight years.
David Doniger at the Natural Resources Defense Council touched on this when he credited President Obama and EPA director Lisa Jackson with “going a long way to restore respect for both science and law. The era of defying science and the Supreme Court has ended.”
Doniger is correct; the EPA’s declaration does go a long way. But that just demonstrates how out of touch—whether because of hard-headed ignorance or the influence of lobbyists and money from polluting industries—the last administration was with the real world. A federal agency acknowledging and accepting scientific evidence is always going to look like a big stride in the right direction if that agency has spent the last decade doing the exact opposite.
As for the polluters affected by the EPA’s declaration, the Times reports they are cautiously reacting to the news because they’re hopeful the climate change legislation in the House Energy and Commerce Committee will give them a break. That would have been the case during the 16 years John Dingell headed the committee. But Henry Waxman is much less polluter-friendly than Dingell was during his tenure in the House.
