Action on warming left to "next president"

[seafan]

Action on warming left to "next president"








By Juliet Eilperin and R. Jeffrey Smith
July 11, 2008

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has decided not to take any new steps to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions before the president leaves office, despite pressure from the Supreme Court and broad accord among senior federal officials that new regulation is appropriate now.
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to announce today that it will seek months of further public comment on the threat posed by global warming to human health and welfare, a matter that federal climate experts and international scientists have repeatedly said should be urgently addressed.

The Supreme Court, in a decision 15 months ago that startled the government, ordered the EPA to decide whether human health and welfare are being harmed by greenhouse-gas pollution from cars, power plants and other sources or to provide a good explanation for not doing so. But the administration has postponed action instead, according to interviews and documents.
To defer compliance with the Supreme Court's demand, the White House has walked a tortured policy path, editing its officials' congressional testimony, refusing to read documents prepared by career employees and approved by top appointees, requesting changes in computer models to lower estimates of the benefits of curbing carbon dioxide, and pushing narrowly drafted legislation on fuel-economy standards that officials said was meant to sap public interest in wider regulatory action.
The decision to solicit further comment overrides the EPA's written recommendation in December. Officials said a few senior White House officials were unwilling to allow the EPA to state officially that global warming harms human welfare.

Doing so would legally trigger sweeping regulatory requirements under the 45-year-old Clean Air Act, one of the pillars of U.S. environmental protection and would cost utilities, automakers and others billions of dollars while also bringing economic benefits, EPA's analyses found.
"They argued that this increase in regulation should be on the next president's record," not Bush's, said a participant in the lengthy interagency debate, referring principally to officials in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, on the White House Council on Environmental Quality, on the National Economic Council and in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

.....

Career EPA officials said the global benefits of reducing carbon are worth at least $40 a ton, but Bush appointees changed the final document to say the figure is just an example, not an official estimate. They prohibited the EPA from submitting a document, "Technical Support Document on Benefits of Reducing GHG Emissions," as part of today's announcement.
"The administration didn't want to show a high-dollar value for reducing carbon," said one EPA official, adding that the administration cut dozens of pages from a draft that outlined cost-effective ways to reduce greenhouse gases.

.....

The full story of how the finding of public endangerment and Bush's promised greenhouse regulations got sidetracked is still not known. The idea of instituting complex new controls on emissions by cars, ships, aircraft, power plants, factories and office buildings was never greeted warmly by any senior Bush appointees, but officials said that after the Supreme Court's slap they divided into roughly two groups: those who thought that regulating under the Clean Air Act was unavoidable, reasonable and best done under Bush; and those who wished to sidestep the law and press for its eventual modification after delay and public debate.

.....

We now know which group prevailed. Once again, the people of this counrty are the losers.



Ex-official: Cheney wanted climate change report altered to downplay public health risks, July 8, 2008

[bdamomma]

1. what arrogance

yea, like this comment you made you POS *.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3389363&mesg_id=3389363

[spanone]

2. i wasted so much outrage on these criminals...

[trof]

3. Yeah, we need more comment and commissions and stuff.

We sure don't want to go off half-cocked on THIS FUCKING PLANETARY DISASTER LOOMING STRAIGHT AHEAD.

Let's consider the problem for a few more years.
Maybe it'll go away.
:eyes: