Bush EPA To Regulate* Greenhouse Gases

The Environmental Protection Agency has ended its long silence on what it's going to do about regulating greenhouse gases to slow global warming. Sort of.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson told Congress Thursday that the EPA would propose sweeping regulations this spring that could affect everything from vehicles to power plants to factories. Emphasis on the "could," given the Bush Administration's reluctance to regulate carbon dioxide.

Congress has been waiting for any definitive word from the EPA since early 2007, when the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA has the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. The EPA refused that mantle in the case of California, which had requested a Clean Air Act waiver so it could regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles; instead, the EPA said the Congressional mandate to upgrade fuel economy was preferable.

Whatever happens, it will likely be up to the next president to take final action, as the long bureaucratic process of rulemaking is unlikely to wind down before Bush exits stage right in January 2009. In that, though, it's not at all unprecedented. A number of controversial Clean Air Act decisions were left to the 11th hour in the Clinton Administration, with the final implementation left to Bush.

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