Reblog: Mark Thoma: "EPA May use Clean Water Act to Regulate Carbon Dioxide"
Mark Thoma writes:
The administration may not need new legislation to begin regulating emissions of carbon dioxide:
EPA may try to use Clean Water Act to regulate carbon dioxide, by Les Blumenthal, McClatchy Newspapers: The Environmental Protection Agency is exploring whether to use the Clean Water Act to control greenhouse gas emissions, which are turning the oceans acidic at a rate that's alarmed some scientists. With climate change legislation stalled in Congress, the Clean Water Act would serve as a second front, as the Obama administration has sought to use the Clean Air Act to rein in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases administratively. Since the dawn of the industrial age, acid levels in the oceans have increased 30 percent. Currently, the oceans are absorbing 22 million tons of carbon dioxide a day....
As with the financial crisis, where the failure to enforce existing regulation was a factor in the meltdown (not to mention the deregulation that also occurred), someday we may wonder why we didn't enforce the environmental regulations that were already on the books.
via economistsview.typepad.com
I had thought that this was the plan all along: that if the Senate did not pass a framework for dealing with global warming, the EPA would using its authority under the Clean Air and Clean Water acts. Thus the Senate either moves on CO2 via Reconciliation or becomes irrelevant.
I'm surprised, however, that this story is here this year rather than a year ago...
