Friday, April 18, 2008 | 2:06 a.m.
President Bush this week called on Congress to enact policies that would stop the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 without mandating emissions caps.
In a speech Wednesday that was heavy on platitudes and light on specifics, Bush said U.S. emissions reductions will be achieved through “a comprehensive blend of market incentives and regulations” that work “by encouraging clean and efficient energy technologies.”
The president also called for slowing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions from electrical power plants so they will peak within 10 to 15 years before beginning to decline.
Bush’s plan of action did not include the cap-and-trade proposals supported by Democrats and now under debate in Congress. Generally, such measures call for capping greenhouse gas emissions and allowing polluters to offset some of the costs of reducing emissions by purchasing credits.
However, Bush’s proposal isn’t so much an effort to promote reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as an effort to head off what his administration has called a regulatory “train wreck” involving key decisions on enforcement of the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the Clean Air Act authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide or CO2, a greenhouse gas and has ordered the EPA to determine whether CO2 threatens the public’s health or welfare. If so, the EPA must regulate CO2 emissions.
Another federal court has ruled that the Interior Department must determine whether to grant the polar bear Endangered Species Act protection because its habitat sea ice is melting in what scientists say is a result of global warming.
Bush and other Republican conservatives have been trying to dismantle or circumvent the nation’s environmental laws for eight years, so this latest attempt by Bush to do so comes as little surprise.
Still, it is disappointing. Bush said this week, “There is a wrong way and a right way to approach reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
We agree and Bush’s approach is the wrong way.
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