Incoming Republican House representatives are scheming to cut funding and stringently oversee the EPA, specifically to prevent them from regulating carbon emissions. Desperate to do something about climate change, the EPA recently declared carbon dioxide a danger to human health and thus within their jurisdiction to regulate under the Clean Air Act of 1970. In contrast, Congress spent the past two years trying to work out a national cap-and-trade policy... and failed.
What Representative Issa of California and his colleagues are trying to do is abusive, bullshit politicking, and it only serves to further ostracize the United States from the rest of the world. Developed countries are expected to take action. While we continue to step backwards, the European Union now has a mandatory carbon emissions cap-and-trade policy, based off a pilot program in the UK, that will significantly reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of Europe.
Regulating the emissions of fossil-fuel based power plants and petroleum refineries-- whether through a carbon emission cap-and-trade market or a bureaucratic mess-- is a necessary step forward for the United States. A step that will boost both our international credibility and our holding in the market for cleaner and more efficient energy technologies.
-----
Great work Aly and probably your most optimistic article to date. The only thing I would have added would have been why the Republicans are trying to prevent the EPA from acting. That would have made your personal point about bullshit politicking more concrete and provided a good segue into your final point about this being bad for America in numerous ways. But apart from that minor editorial correction I really dig this piece. It's conversational, passionate, and well-constructed.
ReplyDelete