Oct 19 2008
Waiting to Exhale – Obama to Declare CO2 as Pollutant
In case you missed this story late last week, Bloomberg reports that plans are already underway for a President Obama to declare CO2 as a pollutant and allow the next EPA administration to wield the big stick of the Clean Air Act to regulate it.
The Democratic senator from Illinois will tell the Environmental Protection Agency that it may use the 1990 Clean Air Act to set emissions limits on power plants and manufacturers, his energy adviser, Jason Grumet, said in an interview. President George W. Bush declined to curb CO2 emissions under the law even after the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the government may do so.
If elected, Obama would be the first president to group emissions blamed for global warming into a category of pollutants that includes lead and carbon monoxide. Obama’s rival in the presidential race, Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, has not said how he would treat CO2 under the act.
Obama “would initiate those rulemakings,” Grumet said in an Oct. 6 interview in Boston. “He’s not going to insert political judgments to interrupt the recommendations of the scientific efforts.”
Hmmm…limitations on how often you can breathe out?