14 DAY TRIAL // The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took a very important step in fighting global warming recently, when it forwarded a proposed finding to the White House, which stated that climate change and the greenhouse effect were threats to America's financial and health security. If the proposal is approved by Obama, then this would be the first step towards regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
If such a legislation is passed, the Congress will be forced to take the global issue more seriously and pass other bills, forcing polluting companies to reduce their emissions under federal law. Undoubtedly, this measure will be strongly opposed by oil and coal firms, which are in the habit of paying millions of dollars to lobbyists for fighting such decisions, rather than invest the money in saving the environment.
Representatives from the White House admitted on Monday that the EPA, indeed, sent the paper to the Office of Management and Budget, but warned that President Obama would consider the documents very carefully. Despite the fact that counteracting global warming was one of the top priorities of the new American administration, the spokespersons said that Obama would act cautiously on the matter, and that he would keep the Congress in the loop, so as to avoid opposition further down the road.
“This is historic news. It will set the stage for the first-ever national limits on global warming pollution and is likely to help light a fire under Congress to get moving,” the leader of the Clean Air Watch advocacy group, Frank O'Donnell, said.
“It's to their interest to say the sky is falling, but it's not. The truth is we've never had to sacrifice air quality to maintain a healthy economy. The EPA has discretion to do this in a reasonable way,” Earthjustice attorney Abigail Dillen explained, talking about the fact that fossil fuel industry representatives would try to use the economic crisis to their advantage, to delay legislation regulating carbon emissions.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told about the EPA documents that, “I think this is just the step in that process.” Another representative, speaking anonymously, shared that the process would be lengthly at best, and that people shouldn't expect tangible results within a short time frame.