EPA Releases Bush Administration's Proposed Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding

In December 2007, while George W. Bush was president, the EPA proposed to declare greenhouse gases a danger to the public welfare. The Bush-Cheney White House ignored that proposal, and the draft was kept secret from the public — until now.

The 2007 draft, just released by the EPA, begins:

“The Administrator proposes to find that the air pollution of elevated levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public welfare.

“The Administrator is defining the air pollution to be the elevated concentrations of the mix of six GHGs: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6).

“The Administrator further proposes to find under section 202(a) that CO2 emissions from new motor vehicles contribute to this air pollution, and that under section 211(c)(1) CO2 emissions from the combustion of fuels used by motor vehicles, non-road vehicles, and non-road engines contribute to this air pollution.

“As discussed further below, the Administrator is considering whether emissions of CH4, N2O, and HFCs under sections 202(a) and 211(c)(1) do or do not contribute to this air pollution, and intends to make a determination on this issue in the final rule.”

The draft goes on to describe the dangers posed to the United States by climate change from sea level rise, storm surges, flooding, erosion, deadly heat waves, diseases and wildfires, and it says the ecosystem, agriculture, water resources and U.S. economy are at risk.

Congressional leaders had seen the document but weren’t allowed to release it in full. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) discussed excerpts last year while calling for a subpoena. At the time, she said:

“Information is being kept from us, and by extension information is being kept from the American people. And this isn't just any kind of information. It is information that deals with the health, the safety and the very lives of the people we represent and their children and their grandchildren. …

“The administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency concludes in this document that there is an endangerment to the American people based on the strongest possible evidence. It is clear. It is chilling.”

Rep. Ed Markey’s (D-Mass.) Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming also conducted an investigation after then-EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson refused to hand over the document. The investigation found “widespread agreement within the Bush administration that greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles endanger public welfare and should be regulated.”

The 2007 EPA draft from Bush administration staff clearly states what opponents of climate action have tried so vehemently to deny:

"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.

"Global mean surface temperatures have risen by 0.74°C (1.3°F) over the last 100 years. The rate of warming over the last 50 years is almost double that over the last 100 years. Global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries.

"Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations. Global observed temperatures over the last century can be reproduced only when model simulations include both natural and anthropogenic forcings, i.e., simulations that remove anthropogenic forcings are unable to reproduce observed temperature changes. Thus, the warming cannot be explained by natural variability alone."

Attachment	Size
2007_Draft_Proposed_Endangerment_Finding.pdf	525.29 KB

• 1
• 2
• next page »