EPA Endangerment Ruling Threatens All Americans

By issuing an endangerment finding on CO2 today, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson effectively placed an economy-wide tax on energy use.  How can this be?  Because 85 percent of the U.S. economy runs on fossil fuels that emit carbon dioxide, according to a Heritage Foundation post today.

Among those issuing immediate responses to the EPA actions today was American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard. He said this:

Jack Gerard, API President

“This action poses a threat to every American family and business if it leads to regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.  Such regulation would be intrusive, inefficient, and excessively costly.   It could chill job growth and delay business expansion.  The Clean Air Act was meant to control traditional air pollution, not greenhouse gases that come from every vehicle, home, factory and farm in America.  A fit-for-purpose climate law is a much preferred solution.

“There was no compelling deadline that forced EPA’s hand on this decision. It is a decision that is clearly politically motivated to coincide with the start of the Copenhagen climate summit. EPA’s finding is inadequate, unsupported by the record and fails to demonstrate a significant risk of harm to public health or welfare.

“API members are reducing greenhouse gas emissions and investing in technology to reduce them further.  Between 2000 and 2008, U.S.-based oil and natural gas companies invested $58 billion in low-carbon energy technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, more than either the federal government or all other U.S.-based private industry combined.”

Unfortunately, this is only the beginning folks.  Time to wake up!