As I've been blogging all week, the EPA has now made its endangerment finding concerning carbon dioxide. The official finding is here. The whole thing is over 300 pages long. I used to really like reading wonky stuff like this, though I doubt I'll have any time.... Here are some responses, all enthused: 1Sky, Chairman Ed Markey, Wonk Room, Solve Climate... From the politics and policy standpoint, I'm most interested in the last commentary, which looks at the strategic implications of this move for the global warming bill currently before Congress:
The swing votes on Waxman-Markey will come from coal- and industrial-state Democrats, now faced with a starker choice. If they oppose the bill, EPA will get to work with regulations, starting with automobiles but extending through formal processes to coal plants and heavy industry. If Congress succeeds in passing Waxman-Markey, it will pre-empt EPA action and buy time for polluters to adjust to emissions reductions more gradually and predictably. The draft Waxman-Markey bill contains generous loopholes for continuing emissions, provides federal support for carbon capture and sequestration, and imposes emission standards on coal plants that don't begin to bite until 2015.
So now, acting out of its own self interest, industry should support congressional action rather than EPA's continuing rulemaking....unless, that is, some companies want to bet that Republican obstructionism can maintain the status quo, even as lawsuits tie up EPA. Let's hope most fossil fuel company CEOs can see that that's a holding pattern at best, and in the long term, a losing strategy.
