In politics, repeating something over and over again can sometimes make it stick, whether it's true or not. From Reagan’s welfare queens, to the specter of “socialized” medicine leading to imminent communist takeover, these sorts of myths often start on the far right but then move surprisingly far to the center. And as the EPA has begun to move forward with regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, we've seen one of these myths begin to take shape. This time it’s the notion that the Clean Air Act is a bad tool for addressing climate change.
At the heart of it is this: a lot of regulated industries and their allies don't want any limits at all on how much carbon dioxide they can release into the atmosphere. But the Clean Air Act says that EPA must regulate any air pollutant that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger the public health or welfare and defines “air pollutant” very broadly. In 2007, the Supreme Court held that greenhouse gases are “air pollutants” under the Act, and ordered EPA to make a scientific judgment under Section 202 about whether the greenhouse gases emitted by cars and trucks “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” Making repeated reference to reports from the National Research Council and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finding conclusive evidence of human-caused global warming, the Supreme Court made clear that, in light of the scientific evidence, it would be difficult for EPA to find no endangerment.
Industry allies have taken various shots at EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gasses, but the arguments range from incorrect to absurd. Fellow Member Scholar Dan Farber and I have just written a memo, Six Myths About Climate Change and the Clean Air Act, addressing these topics. In the short paper we respond to six sadly common claims:
The EPA can and will defend its authority in the courts, but that's not going to stop opponents from trying to attack it in the court of public opinion with myths like these. Our memo lays out how these claims are myths, and how the EPA has the law on its side.
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Amy Sinden | April 18, 2011
In politics, repeating something over and over again can sometimes make it stick, whether it’s true or not. From Reagan’s welfare queens, to the specter of “socialized” medicine leading to imminent communist takeover, these sorts of myths often start on the far right but then move surprisingly far to the center. And as the EPA […]
Sidney A. Shapiro | April 15, 2011
Congress charged the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) with the job of representing the interests of small business before regulatory agencies, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). As an agency of the federal government, it has an obligation to taxpayers to get its facts straight before it speaks. Lately, […]
Celeste Monforton | April 13, 2011
Cross-posted from The Pump Handle. President Obama received an award last week for his efforts to improve openness in federal agencies. Jon Stewart poked fun at it (see clip) and I actually thought it might have been an April Fool’s joke because of what I’d learned earlier in the week. The President’s own Office of […]
Matthew Freeman | April 13, 2011
CPR Member Scholar John Echeverria was on Capitol Hill yesterday, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on the Constitution. His topic was a proposed bill from Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) to impose federal limits on state and local use of eminent domain – the authority to condemn private property so that it can be […]
Yee Huang | April 12, 2011
Today CPR releases Making Good Use of Adaptive Management, a white paper explaining the basic principles of adaptive management and highlighting best practices for implementing and applying it to natural resources management. Over the last two decades, natural resource scientists, managers, and policymakers have employed adaptive management of land and natural resources. The approach calls for […]
Dan Rohlf | April 8, 2011
A student-run environmental group operating out of a 150-square-foot office at Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon has an important lesson to teach congressional Republicans. In 2004, the Northwest Environmental Defense Center – a small group with an annual budget of a few thousand dollars and a single staff member – secured more […]
Matthew Freeman | April 7, 2011
This afternoon at 1:00 p.m., the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Power will check one more box in the House GOP’s ongoing effort to demonstrate its appreciation to the corporate interests that helped elect them, by holding a hearing on a proposal disingenuously called the Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts […]
Ben Somberg | April 6, 2011
When the U.S. Small Business Administration issued a study last September claiming regulations cost the U.S. economy $1.75 Trillion in a single year, the agency trumpeted that the "report was peer reviewed consistent with the Office of Advocacy’s data quality guidelines." But the peer review file included with the study was embarrassingly meager — comments […]
Holly Doremus | April 5, 2011
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. EPA has announced that it will delay finalizing its guidance memorandum on Clean Water Act permitting for mountaintop removal mining projects pending review by the White House Office of Management and Budget. The announcement is bad news for Appalachian streams, and worse news for environmental interests hoping the Obama administration won’t […]