Un Petit Pois

E.P.A. Moves Toward Regulating Greenhouse Gases

“The Environmental Protection Agency has moved to declare that greenhouse gases are pollutants that pose a danger to the public’s health and welfare. That determination, once made final, will pave the way for federal regulation of carbon dioxide, methane and other heat-trapping gases linked to global warming.

In February, the E.P.A.’s administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, hinted strongly in an interview with The New York Times that the agency would take action on the issue before April 2. That date marks the second anniversary of a Supreme Court ruling ordering the agency to determine whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases qualify as pollutants under the Clean Air Act…

But Bill Kovacs, a specialist on global warming issues with the United States Chamber of Commerce, said that an endangerment finding would automatically provoke a tangle of regulatory requirements for businesses large and small, including, he predicted, small dairy farms whose cattle produce methane gas.”

March 23, 2009, 10:32pm

Toxic Emissions Fell in 2007, E.P.A. Says

“The volume of toxic chemicals that were released into the environment or sent for disposal in 2007 dropped 5 percent compared with 2006, the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday. But concealed within the overall numbers was good and bad news.

For example, the volume of released or disposed “persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic chemicals,” substances like lead, dioxin, mercury and PCBs, was up slightly, the agency said. Most of those releases were not to air or water, the agency said, meaning that the material was mostly buried in landfills, injected into deep wells or held in impoundments.

The material released or disposed of in 2007 came to almost 4.1 billion pounds. More than 20 billion pounds, about five times as much material, was recycled, treated to render it nontoxic or burned for energy, the agency said.”

March 23, 2009, 10:30pm