Environment New Mexico
strongly criticized the Bush EPA’s announcement today that it will further
delay action in response to last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling requiring the
EPA to reconsider its 2003 decision not to regulate global warming emissions
under the Clean Air Act.
“We are extremely
disappointed by the Bush EPA’s failure to reduce the threat global warming poses
to public health and welfare,” said Environment New Mexico Advocate Lauren Ketcham. “The White
House has censored, ignored, and rewritten the clear scientific and legal facts
in order to delay the day of reckoning when the oil, auto, and coal industries
are held accountable for their pollution.
Now it’s up to the next Administration to right this wrong and finally
start to tackle global warming with the many clean energy solutions that are at
our fingertips,” she continued.
The decision announced today
was heavily influenced by political operatives at the White House. New reports reveal that the White House
rejected EPA’s conclusion last December that global warming endangers public welfare
by refusing to open the email containing the legal document, leaving the issue
in limbo for more than seven months.
In stark contrast to today’s
“extremely watered-down” Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, EPA’s original
December 5 document determined that global warming is “unequivocal,” that the
evidence is both “compelling and robust” that global warming endangers public
welfare, and the EPA administrator must act to prevent Americans from harm.
“The Bush administration is
abdicating its clear responsibility to protect Americans from global
warming. Every year of delay makes it
more difficult to stop the worst effects of global warming,” concluded Ketcham.
