From The Salt Lake Tribune, 9/1/03:
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/sep/09012003/opinion/opinion.asp
What EPA?
If there were many people who actually believed the Bush
administration's rhetoric of good intentions toward the environment,
last week may pretty much have taken care of that.
First, the Environmental Protection Agency's acting administrator
approved a rule change that lets industrial plants expand and upgrade
without adding air-pollution controls, in apparent violation of the
Clean Air Act.
But, with Congress in recess and the EPA without an administrator
pending Senate confirmation of Gov. Mike Leavitt to the post,
President Bush's people weren't through pushing their anti-regulation,
pro-business agenda.
On Thursday, the agency announced it cannot legally regulate carbon
dioxide, which, in its overabundance, is believed by many scientists
-- including a number at the EPA -- to be the main cause of global
warming.
Scientists are not in complete agreement that today's climate changes
are man-caused rather than the result of natural weather cycles.
But there is growing evidence fossil-fuel emissions play a central
role in these warming trends.
The president has said that until natural explanations for global
warming are ruled out, it would be unwise for the United States to
throw too many regulations at the businesses that produce the most
emissions.
Competing scientific theories aside, last week's evisceration of
federal clean-air regulations was another breathtaking example of the
Bush administration's willingness to favor polluting industries over
public health and the environment.
Thursday's ruling means the Clean Air Act cannot be invoked to cut
carbon-dioxide emissions from cars.
The EPA argued that because the act does not directly refer to global
warming, carbon dioxide cannot be classified as a harmful pollutant.
The auto industry is understandably elated.
Under a 1998 EPA interpretation of the law, carmakers could have been
required to install expensive new pollution controls on cars to meet
stricter emissions standards.
Environmental activists likely will sue the EPA to force the agency to
regulate carbon dioxide, and some lawmakers in Congress are pushing
for a new law giving the EPA clear authority to regulate emissions of
gases believed to cause global warming.
Former EPA administrator Christie Whitman resigned last spring soon
after the EPA's Climate Action Report 2002 was dismissed by the White
House as a product of governmental "bureaucracy."
The climate report acknowledged that "greenhouse gases are
accumulating in the Earth's atmosphere as a result of human
activities, causing global mean surface air temperatures and
subsurface ocean temperatures to rise."
The administration refused to accept the report's conclusions, and,
said Reuters, "is still opposed to an international accord to reduce
heat-trapping emissions."
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The anti-American people administration strikes again.
Harry
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