Last week the US’ Environmental Protection Agency officially confirmed that global warming from manmade greenhouse gases does have a negative effect on the American citizen’s health and welfare, something that the previous Bush administration refused to accept. They also stated that the pollutants – mainly carbon dioxide from fossil fuels – should be reduced, if not by Congress then by the agency responsible for enforcing air pollution. Existing power plants could now be forced to clean their emissions and also a more fuel-efficient vehicle policy across the US could be enforced, via the EPA’s “US Clean Air Act”. Either way, whether the EPA or Congress control the emissions reduction programs, the American people will feel the economic squeeze but can look forward to a healthier future.
”These long-overdue findings cement 2009’s place in history as the year when the United States government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution,” said Lisa Jackson of the EPA.
Meanwhile many US businesses fear that any solutions implemented via the Clean Air Act will be far more costly than those implemented via a cap-and-trade system. ”Such regulations would be intrusive, inefficient and excessively costly, chill job growth and delay business expansion,” argued Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute.
The EPA’s announcement gives President Obama more power to take US emissions reductions commitment decisions without having to go through US Congress, although the President has outlined he would prefer to go via the legislative process. US citizens are more concerned with domestic issues such as public health and rising unemployment and as such US Senators have their own emission reductions proposals but these involve continuing to expand the oil and coal-based industries!
Either way, reducing emissions is going to require enormous expenditure from the US government on research and implementation of cleaner and renewable energies, reaching in to hundreds of billions of US$. With a growing renewable energy industry job creation should emerge but short term spending will create large national debt. Energy prices will rise, the cost of manufacturing and construction will rise, the cost of running vehicles will rise, and the total impact could reach hundred of billions of US$. Most importantly everyone must realise that a clean planet will come at a financial cost to everyone.
