[Via Reuters] If Congress cannot settle on a climate bill, this finding, if approved by the White House, will provide the basis for emissions regulation by the EPA under the Clean Air Act.
Of course if you get your news from the Journal, you’d learn that this is primarily a fight between the noble captains of industry who want to protect the economy and a bunch of dirty hippies:
Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers warn that if the EPA moves forward on regulation of CO2 under the Clean Air Act — instead of a measured legislative approach — it could hobble the already weak economy.
Coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and domestic industries, such as energy-intensive paper, cement, fertilizer, steel, and glass manufacturers, are worried the increased cost burdens imposed by climate-change laws will put them at a severe competitive disadvantage to their international peers who aren’t bound by similar environmental rules.
Environmentalists, however, have called for the endangerment finding, and say action by Congress or the Obama administration to curb greenhouse gases is necessary to halt the ill effects of climate change.
Nowhere is it mentioned that the EPA’s own analysis under the Bush administration found that regulating CO2 could result in a net $2 trillion economic benefit. Something that the reporter for the Journal’s article should be well-aware of given his portfolio.
If those are the teams, sign me up with the hippies.
> economic benefit
translated to Repub, that was read as “redistribution of wealth” away from the big contributors. That’s why they stifled the report.