http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0829-02.htm WASHINGTON - Carbon dioxide, the chief cause of global warming, cannot be regulated as a pollutant, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled Thursday.
'CO2 IS NOT A POLLUTANT'
Environmentalists accused President Bush on August 28, 2003 of further undermining international efforts to curb global warming with a likely ruling that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Carbon dioxide occurs as a natural component of the atmosphere as well as being a by-product of industrial processes. Bush is shown during a campaign speech in Saginaw, Michigan on Sept. 29, 2000 during which he announced proposals for mandatory reductions in four major pollutants, including carbon dioxide. Photo by Jeff Mitchell/Reuters
The decision reverses a 1998 Clinton administration position. It means that the Bush administration won't be able to use the Clean Air Act to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from cars.
Had the Bush administration decided that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and harmful, it could have required expensive new pollution controls on new cars and perhaps on power plants, which together are the main sources of so-called greenhouse gases.
Environmentalists are expected to respond by suing the EPA to try to force it to regulate carbon dioxide. The real fight is likely to shift to Congress, where some lawmakers are proposing a new law giving the EPA clear authority to regulate emissions of gases linked to global warming.
"Refusing to call greenhouse-gas emissions a pollutant is like refusing to say that smoking causes lung cancer," responded Melissa Carey, a climate policy specialist for Environmental Defense, a New York-based environmental group. "The Earth is round. Elvis is dead. Climate change is happening."
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