April 24, 2009

Carbon constraints are coming to the United States. But the key question is whether Congress or the Environmental Protection Agency compels them.

EPA now officially considers carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to be harmful to human health, which is the legal prerequisite to regulate those releases under the Clean Air Act. That designation is a marked shift in U.S. environmental policy and signifies a clear move toward regulating the heat-trapping emissions from all sources. But while EPA says that it is prepared to draft the official rules, it would rather defer to Congress.

April 17, 2009
Source: ABC News
By DAVID KERLEY and HUMA KHAN

In another decisive shift from the Bush administration's environmental policies, the government took a new stance on greenhouse gases that is expected to radically change the landscape of U.S. environmental policy.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that carbon dioxide, and five other greenhouse gases spewing out of tailpipes, "endanger public health and welfare" of the American people. These gases, they said, contribute to climate change, which is causing more heat waves, droughts and flooding, and is threatening food and water supplies.

The EPA's mandate is a critical step toward amending climate change regulations. It gives President Obama the ammunition, under the 40-year-old Clean Air Act, to order emissions reductions and tighten regulations. That could include measures such as requiring more fuel-efficiency in cars and less carbon dioxide emission at plants and industries.

"It's a serious problem for us and for the world," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson recently told ABC News. "And the impacts of climate change are not just life and death, but they are economic costs that are hard to extrapolate into the future."

March 16, 2009

It may seem contradictory. But according to both industry and environmental groups, the discrepancies in policies can be explained. At issue: cap-and-trade.

Those strategies use the free market to reduce air emissions. And while the Obama administration supports such an approach when it comes to cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, it does not do so as it relates to mercury emissions. Both issues have risen to the top of Washington's agenda, raising an obvious set of questions as to why cap-and-trade may be appropriate in certain areas but not in others.

Transcript from Marketplace on Pubilc Radio
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
by: Kai Ryssdal

KAI RYSSDAL: Goodness knows you've heard the word a lot on this program. You've probably used it yourself at some point in the past couple of years: Sustainability.

Companies have caught on too. A lot of them have launched what they call sustainability initiatives -- doing well by being good. That usually means cutting energy and water use and waste. They've hired sustainability directors, carefully calculated their carbon footprints, and banished styrofoam from the lunchroom.

We wondered, though, whether it's still easy to be green in a recession. From the Marketplace sustainability desk, Sarah Gardner reports.

February 09, 2009

Tough economic times won't obviate the need for new environmental controls. That's the message coming from Washington now that President Obama has taken two critical steps in the battle to combat global warming.

In the early days of his presidency, Obama has pushed aside a previous order by the former administration that prohibited California and 13 other states from enacting tailpipe emissions rules tougher than those imposed by the federal government. Obama has asked his Environmental Protection Agency to review those request for waivers while at the same declaring that the country would issue new fuel efficiency rules.