The next step on global warming

Published: February 1, 2009

It seemed that every chance he got, President George W. Bush ignored or flat out refused to address the problem of climate change. So we were greatly encouraged by President Obama's swift announcement that he is likely to approve California's request to regulate greenhouse gases from vehicles - a request the Bush administration denied.
The logical next step would be for Obama to quickly address the Supreme Court's 2007 decision ordering the Environmental Protection Agency to examine the effects of greenhouse gases and to regulate them if necessary. Bush dodged that one, too.
The court instructed the agency to first determine whether global warming pollution threatened public health and welfare - known as an "endangerment finding" under the Clean Air Act - and, if so, to devise emissions standards for vehicles.
Lisa Jackson, the agency's new administrator, said in a memo to her employees last week that she intended to honor her "obligation to address climate change under the Clean Air Act." But there is resistance from some members of Congress and the business community who fear that regulating vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases will lead to economy-wide controls on greenhouse gases from all sources, including industry.
Stephen Johnson, Bush's EPA administrator, initially tried to do the right thing. He ordered his staff to write an endangerment finding and craft regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.

In December 2007, he sent the entire package to the White House, which not only chose to ignore the findings but refused to open the e-mail message that contained them.
Johnson then ordered up a laborious public rule-making process that essentially went nowhere and allowed Bush to retire to Texas without having done much of anything. Jackson is eager to get the process back on track.
Nobody, including the administrator, is under any illusions that the EPA alone can solve climate change. Congress will have to take ownership of the issue by authorizing major public investments in clean-energy technologies and by putting a price on greenhouse-gas emissions in order to unlock private investment.
But smart regulation can begin to advance the ball. For starters, it would force industry to look for ways to make cars that are much more fuel-efficient. It would help goad Congress into action. It is also, as the Supreme Court has pointed out, the law.