Earth Equity News

New EPA Report Illustrates Administration's 'Contorted' Position on Climate Change. By David A. Rahrenthold and Juliet Eilperin, WashPost, July 18, 2008. "Climate change will pose 'substantial' threats to human health in the coming decades, the EPA said yesterday -- issuing its warnings about heat waves, hurricanes and pathogens just days after [declining] to regulate the [warming] pollutants... The [report] highlighted the contorted position that the EPA has staked out on climate change. Last week, the agency decided not to regulate greenhouse gas emissions... [but] in a closed interview Tuesday, former EPA deputy associate administrator Jason K. Burnett told the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming that Joel D. Kaplan, Bush's deputy chief of staff for policy, originally signed off on the decision to regulate emissions from both vehicles and stationary sources... 'There was a general belief that moving forward with a challenge and establishing a precedent in channeling regulation would serve the country better than leaving the challenge to the next administration,' Burnett [said]... 'The chief of staff's office then appears to have changed its mind'... The EPA report yesterday was less notable for its warnings -- similar problems have been predicted by other scientists and by the IPCC -- than for its source. The Bush administration has resisted the conclusion that increasing temperatures will harm human health, but in yesterday's report, that finding was unmistakable."