EPA Chief Expected To Declare That Greenhouse Gases Pose Health Threat

Lisa Jackson, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is expected to issue a finding next month that greenhouse gas emissions pose a threat to public health and welfare, setting the stage to begin regulating the gases now warming the earth’s atmosphere, according to a report. Greenwire reported that scientists at the EPA are working intensively to prepare documents demonstrating that carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases are a danger to the American public. Jackson is expected to use that report to issue a so-called “endangerment finding” on April 16, roughly two years after a landmark case in which the U.S. Supreme Court instructed the federal government to determine if greenhouse gases threatened public health and therefore should be regulated by the Clean Air Act. The Bush administration never acted on the Supreme Court’s ruling, but Jackson is expected to make greenhouse gas regulation a centerpiece of the Obama administration’s environmental strategy.