Earth Equity News

Administration Releases EPA Report, Then Repudiates It. By Stephen Tower and Ian Talley, WSJournal, July 13, 2008. "The Bush administration published a government blueprint [PDF, 588 pp] to reduce the U.S. output of global-warming gases, but at the same time rejected the document out of hand -- saying it relied on 'untested legal theories' and would impose 'crippling costs' on the U.S. economy. Essentially, the White House presented critics of the report with a prepackaged rebuttal brief, in what is expected to be the Bush administration's last major effort to frame the national discussion on responding to global warming before a new president inherits the issue. The White House argues the Environmental Protection Agency must not be allowed to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, for fear it would be able to block development across the country. The EPA document was written to respond to a Supreme Court order: The court instructed the agency to decide whether greenhouse gases are a danger to public health or welfare. Instead, the final document took no position on the court's question -- yet escalated the extraordinary battle between the agency and the White House. The White House rejected an earlier draft that did find a danger to welfare, which would trigger application of the strict rules of the Clean Air Act to regulating greenhouse gases. This time, the agency stopped short of the endangerment finding, but still drew up a road map for using the Clean Air Act. That led the White House to warn of a government 'command-and-control' regime that would regulate virtually every aspect of American life from cars to factories, hotels and lawnmowers."