Presumably timed with the United Nations Climate Change Conference late last year in Copenhagen, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson
Presumably timed with the United Nations Climate Change Conference late last year in Copenhagen, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson issued an expected ruling that greenhouse gases pose a public health threat.
The finding will delay construction activity, undermine economic recovery and push construction unemployment above its current 19.4 percent rate, noted an Associated General Contractors of America statement released upon the EPA’s announcement. The group added that while it fully supports measures to improve the environment, the administration’s ruling will make it harder to build the greener future our planet needs, such as constructing efficient new buildings, cutting polluting traffic or retrofitting existing inefficient structures. Every construction project in America is now likely to be put on standby until federal bureaucrats decide whether or not to grant Clean Air Act permits, AGC states.
The EPA finding also means that the agency can regulate smokestack and tailpipe emissions regardless of whether the U.S. Congress passes legislative limits. The ruling comes two years after a Supreme Court decision that enabled EPA to decide if global warming threatens human health and start controlling emissions accordingly. Although no specific regulations were mentioned in Administrator Jackson’s announcement, agency findings cover six greenhouse gases Û carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride.