Vitter, Barrasso caution against implications of Greenhouse Gas endangerment finding
by U.S. Sens. David Vitter and John Barrasso media release
December 8, 2009
(Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Sens. David Vitter and John Barrasso today cautioned the White House regarding the implications of today’s finalized endangerment finding by President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide and other gases.
"Today the Obama administration formally declared carbon dioxide – something humans and animals exhale and plants and vegetation breathe in – as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act," said Vitter. "By granting the EPA the ability to take unilateral action on this issue, the administration is risking further damage to the U.S. economy. The EPA’s decision may well result in a top-down, command-and-control approach that will add new mandates and could have a negative impact on almost every major sector of our economy. In the end, American families will pay for the cost of this decision in their utility bills, merchandise at stores and food items at the grocer."
"The EPA’s actions say they are more interested in international opinion than saving American jobs," said Barrasso. "The EPA is playing politics with people’s jobs during a recession, and that is just wrong."
Last week, Vitter and Barrasso joined U.S. Reps. Darrell Issa and James Sensenbrenner on a letter to U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to request that the agency conduct a thorough investigation into the questions raised as a result of the disclosure of emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Great Britain. Many of these emails have raised questions about the use of these scientists’ data in their experiments and scientific investigations related to global warming.
"Some of the emails that have come to light involved a number of climate change scientists and other institutions that have played a pivotal role in the development of the U.N.’s official climate change policies, to include those relating to greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide," Vitter said. "These emails have raised serious questions about these policies, and we asked that the EPA look further into this situation. To date, we have received no response, yet the administration is pressing ahead with this new endangerment finding despite evidence suggesting that some of the climate change data may have been manipulated. I fear that politics may be overriding policy when it comes to this important issue."
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