Twenty years ago, on this day, August 28, 2003, the Environmental Persecution Agency says “protecting the environment is not our remit. Now go away” (I paraphrase, but only lightly).
2003 August 28, 2003: EPA Rules that Carbon Dioxide is Not a Pollutant
The Environmental Protection Agency rules that carbon dioxide, the leading cause of global warming, cannot be regulated as a pollutant. EPA General Counsel Robert Fabricant writes in his 12-page decision, “Because the [Clean Air Act] does not authorize regulation to address climate change, it follows that [carbon dioxide] and other [greenhouse gases], as such, are not air pollutants.” His ruling reverses the position taken by the Clinton administration in 1998. Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, is pleased with the decision. “Why would you regulate a pollutant that is an inert gas that is vital to plant photosynthesis and that people exhale when they breathe? That’s not a pollutant,” he says. Melissa Carey, a climate policy specialist for Environmental Defense, disagrees. “Refusing to call greenhouse-gas emissions a pollutant is like refusing to say that smoking causes lung cancer. The Earth is round. Elvis is dead. Climate change is happening.” [Knight Ridder, 8/29/2003]
https://www.epa.gov/archive/epapages/newsroom_archive/newsreleases/694c8f3b7c16ff6085256d900065fdad.html
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly xxxppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that in September 2000, on the campaign trail George Bush had said that carbon dioxide emissions would be regulated. He then pulled the US out of Kyoto Protocol negotiations, and started talking about technology and technological fixes such as carbon capture and storage.
The EPA which had been created under President Nixon was supposed to have responsibility for pollutants so arguing carbon dioxide was not a pollutant was a good way of denying any responsibility which is what you would expect from a Bush Appointee.
What I think we can learn from this is that the Republican war against science and against the environment has changed shape in the 80s. Then it was naked and gleeful, but they learnt that that was costly and provoked their enemies. So instead they turned to this sort of stunt of tying their own hands so that they did not have a legal obligation to take action.
What happened next
Various state governments sued. The EPA it went to the Supreme Court. And in 2007 Supreme Court decided that carbon dioxide was indeed a pollutant…
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.