EPA Labels Greenhouse Gases as Harmful Pollutants

Article here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...041701453.html

A little more info: What the EPA actually did was release two different items, a Proposed Endangerment Finding and a Proposed Cause or Contribute Finding. The Endangerment Finding basically says that certain greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, perfluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons, and methane) pose a danger to public health or welfare. The Cause or Contribute Finding basically says that automobile exhaust emissions contribute to the amount of these gases present in the atmosphere. These findings are still in the preliminary public comment phase. They could eventually be used as the basis for increased regulation on the amount of these gases that are emitted from automobiles, as well as other sources (industrial facilities and processes, etc.). This would mean stricter emissions standards for car engines, power plants, factory smokestacks, and so on and so forth. As stated in the article, this is probably going to stimulate discussion of a legislatively introduced "Cap and Trade" emissions-trading system, since if emissions are going to be regulated, there are a lot of people who would rather that the regulation be instituted through new legislation rather than the expansion of existing regulatory regimes to include the gases in question.

Thoughts?

The idea of a cap and trade system is poor and, I believe, ultimately ineffective. While the largest polluters aren't necessarily the richest, those who are the wealthiest have profit margins that would be affected by any limitation put on them. It will turn into companies buy up all trade credits from wherever they can to maintain current (or as close to as possible) levels of pollution in a legal manner, simply buying the right to do so.

I'm no expert, but I'm reasonably certain that the only way to get levels like this to change is going to involve some rather heavy hanbded mandates, because we cannot reasonably expect corporate entities to effectively police themselves for the benefit of the communities they operate in, mostly because they aren't actually beholden to the areas that they operate in. The cap and trade is a bandaid that cannot work within the confines of the current system. What needs to come about is an overhaul of the system, but this is requiring a shift in thinking and action that is generally contrary to what current successful buisness interests are.

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Originally Posted by coqauvin

I'm no expert, but I'm reasonably certain that the only way to get levels like this to change is going to involve some rather heavy hanbded mandates, because we cannot reasonably expect corporate entities to effectively police themselves for the benefit of the communities they operate in, mostly because they aren't actually beholden to the areas that they operate in. The cap and trade is a bandaid that cannot work within the confines of the current system. What needs to come about is an overhaul of the system, but this is requiring a shift in thinking and action that is generally contrary to what current successful buisness interests are.

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But can't local communities bring a case against a polluting corporation through tort law?

They can, but communities rarely have the time and resources necessary to manage a full lawsuit against a corporation, who will typically stall and hold the lawsuit in limbo for as long as possible. In the case of the corporation, they lose a bit of money through keeping the case in courts and exploiting loopholes, but continue to operate in that time, still generating the same income as before. Communites, especially rural ones, lack the resources, time and expertise to compete on that level.

So is the solution A) introduce legislation, or B) remove the loopholes currently present in tort law

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Originally Posted by benzss

So is the solution A) introduce legislation, or B) remove the loopholes currently present in tort law

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This is fine for when some chemical company is dumping dioxins that get into the local water supply or whatever, but how could local communities bringing suit under tort law--even with the loopholes sewed up--possibly address the problem of global warming due to greenhouse gases? Which are the gases at issue in the OP.

EDIT: Actually, even if all the loopholes can be closed, I would still say that communities bringing suit under tort law is a woefully inadequate method of stopping companies from polluting. But that's a topic for another thread.

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Originally Posted by Syme

This is fine for when some chemical company is dumping dioxins that get into the local water supply or whatever, but how could local communities bringing suit under tort law--even with the loopholes sewed up--possibly address the problem of global warming due to greenhouse gases? Which are the gases at issue in the OP.

EDIT: Actually, even if all the loopholes can be closed, I would still say that communities bringing suit under tort law is a woefully inadequate method of stopping companies from polluting. But that's a topic for another thread.

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If the scientific argument is strong enough, which is evidently is, why is prosecution under current laws woefully inadequate? Wouldn't common law basically cater for any new regulation?

Yes, under existing law, the EPA is entitled (obligated, in fact) to identify harmful pollutants and impose regulations on the emission of those pollutants. Up until now, they have not identified greenhouse gases as harmful pollutants and thus haven't regulated the emission of greenhouse gases, but now they have identified greenhouse gases as such, which raises the prospect that they might regulate their emission. The question isn't whether the current regulatory framework is capable of being expanded to regulate GG emissions, it's whether that is the best way to approach the problem of GG emissions. There are people who think that it's not, and that the problem would be better approached with new legislation, for the (fairly understandable) reason that greenhouse gas emissions differ from "traditional" air pollution in several key respects, and perhaps should be differently regulated. Just because a system already exists to regulate one thing doesn't mean that the system is necessarily the ideal way to regulate new, related but different, things. So that's what the controversy is over, and that's why I started this thread; to discuss the controversy.

Would I be correct to assume that your stance is that new legislation is not needed, and that the current Clean Air Act regulatory regime should be used to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases along with the airborne pollutants that it already deals with?

Don't mean to sound like an arse, but I'm going to need a bit of time to look all that stuff up... since I'm talking from a more generic point of view (as in what I said could apply to most western countries) I can't comment right now on the 'EPA' and the US 'Clean Air Act'.

Mainly, however, I was just questioning the need for regulation when law plainly exists which can deal with it. Whether or not it's adequate is up for debate.

No worries at all about sounding like an arse, I'd probably be even more lost if we were talking about British environmental policy.

It's my own personal belief that a lot of these problems are deliberately ignored because the corporations operating in the specific areas have no personal (that's not exactly the right word to use, but it will suffice I suppose) attachment to the place where they operate. I don't think that telling companies they have to operate in a certain way, a way that a) goes contrary to their current desires/practices/interests b) prevents them from, in their opinion, optimizing their profits (which does run contrary to their mission statement - acting in the financial interests of their shareholders). In what may be an oversimplification, environmental legislation tends to hamper straightforward profiteering, mostly because it prevents straightforward rape-and-run massive short-term profit techniques. An extreme example of this is the mining industry in Montana.

State legislation requires mining companies to place a multimillion damage deposit whenever mines are being started, because mining is a dirty, dirty buisness and not all companies are willing to clean it up. One example is the case of Pegasus Gold, a mining company that operated (and still operates under the name Apollo Gold) in the 90's that practices pretty much what I'm talking about. They found a poor gold mine, in a time of poor economic value for gold, and used incredibly harmful practices. Pegasus practiced Heap Leaching, something typically done on tailings and to extract the miniscule amounts of gold from low-grade ores, although in this case, most of the actual gold came from applying this method. When the company could no longer support itself, its board of directors voted themselves a bonus exceed one million dollars each, a move immediately followed by filing for bankruptcy and left the bill for cleaning up to the state of Montana and its residents. I would go out on a limb and say that each one of them would conclude that their actions are merely 'good business'

In spite of that, what would be more effective is changing the playing field so that it benefits the company to not harm their environment. This is, again, personal opinion, but it's also the hallmark of good leadership: get a group of people to do what you want because they want to. If you change the playing field so that it's in a company's best interest to maintain where it works and accept a lower rate of profit for long-term sustainibility rather than rewarding its short-term profiteering, then we'll start to see the effective environmental changes being made. Of course, don't ask me how to do this.