{"id":4428,"date":"2009-04-17T11:53:59","date_gmt":"2009-04-17T17:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=4428"},"modified":"2009-04-17T11:53:59","modified_gmt":"2009-04-17T17:53:59","slug":"solveclimate-tom-delay-the-epa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/solveclimate-tom-delay-the-epa\/","title":{"rendered":"SolveClimate: Tom Delay &#038; the EPA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/files\/2009\/04\/tom-delay.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4429\" src=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/files\/2009\/04\/tom-delay.jpg\" alt=\"tom delay on the capitol steps\" width=\"280\" height=\"265\" \/><\/a><em>Editor\u2019s note: This post was <a href=\"\/\/solveclimate.com\/blog\/20090417\/how-tom-delay-sparked-epa-s-greenhouse-gas-endangerment-finding\u201d\">originally published<\/a> on Friday, April 17, at <a href=\"\/\/www.solveclimate.com\u201d\">SolveClimate<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced today that she has determined that greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to the public health and welfare. The next step is a 60-day comment period, but once that endangerment finding becomes official, it will mark a fundamental shift in how the United States addresses human sources of climate change.<\/p>\n<p>So how did we get here?<\/p>\n<p>The endangerment finding directly stems from the Supreme Court ruling in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.supremecourtus.gov\/opinions\/06pdf\/05-1120.pdf\"><em>Massachusetts v. EPA<\/em><\/a>, but it has roots that go back more than a decade to a most unexpected source: <strong>The mouth of former Republican representative Tom Delay of Texas.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Here\u2019s how presidential climate advisor Carol Browner, President Clinton\u2019s EPA administrator during the 1990s, <a href=\"http:\/\/amps-web.mit.edu\/public\/amps\/webcast\/clean-energy-economy-13apr2009\/\">tells the story<\/a> of Delay\u2019s unintentional role in the Obama EPA&#8217;s endangerment finding:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cHe and I got into a squabble one day <!--break-->in a hearing where he kept saying to me \u2013 this was back in the mid-\u201890s \u2013 \u2018You\u2019re regulating greenhouse gases.\u2019 I said, \u2018No, we\u2019re simply studying them.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis went back and forth for a while, and eventually he said, \u2018Well, do you think you have the authority to regulate them?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI said, \u2018You know, I never thought about it, I\u2019m happy to take a look at the Clean Air Act, but the words don\u2019t appear in the Clean Air Act \u2013 greenhouse gases, climate change. But we\u2019ll take a look at it.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo I went back, and the lawyers took a look, and they wrote a memo saying, \u2018we probably do!\u2019 As we were leaving office, we updated that memo because there had been other activities pursuant to the Clean Air Act, and we left the memos behind.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Bush administration came along and said, well that can\u2019t possibly be the right interpretation. So, it was the memos that underlined the good leadership of the state of Massachusetts that led ultimately to the Supreme Court\u2019s decision, which is a profound decision.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The state of Massachusetts got involved in 2003, when the Bush administration refused to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks under the Clean Air Act.<\/p>\n<p>Massachusetts sued, and in April 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, and that it could not refuse to use that authority simply because of policy preferences.<\/p>\n<p>The court ordered the Bush EPA to make a determination based on science. If the agency found a danger to public health and welfare, the EPA would have to begin setting standards to regulate greenhouse gases emissions from motor vehicles. But when the EPA sent the White House its determination as an e-mail attachment later that year, White House officials refused to open it.<\/p>\n<p>Only now, under a new administration, is the EPA prepared to take action.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read more about <a href=\"http:\/\/redgreenandblue.org\/2009\/04\/17\/epa-finds-greenhouse-gases-pose-a-threat-to-public-health\/\">the EPA&#8217;s decision<\/a> at Red, Green, and Blue.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Image source:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Capsteps.jpg\">Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Editor\u2019s note: This post was originally published on Friday, April 17, at SolveClimate. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced today that she has determined that greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger&nbsp;[ &hellip; ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":4429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,21],"tags":[2453,129,584,1423,3166],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>SolveClimate: Tom Delay &amp; the EPA &#8226; Sustainablog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/solveclimate-tom-delay-the-epa\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SolveClimate: Tom Delay &amp; the EPA &#8226; Sustainablog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Editor\u2019s note: This post was originally published on Friday, April 17, at SolveClimate. 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