Climate change: The EPA steps in

After years of dragging its feet on climate change, the US is suddenly moving forward, with the Environmental Protection Agency stepping in to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act:

The proposal would require construction and operating permits for facilities emitting at least 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide and five other climate-altering pollutants per year. The threshold is 100 times higher than that required for other types of pollutants such as sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxide that have more acute health and environmental effects.

Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, said that while the rule would affect about 14,000 large CO₂ sources, most of them are already subject to clean air permitting requirements because they emit other pollutants.

The permits must show that the operators are using the best available technology and efficiency measures to minimize greenhouse gas emissions when facilities are built or significantly modified.

By raising the standard to 25,000, the new rule exempts millions of smaller sources of carbon dioxide pollution such as bakeries, dry cleaners and apartment complexes.

While this won't reduce emissions - that would require shutting down those sources - it will shift the US's growth in a cleaner direction, and gradually force upgrades. It is an excellent backstop to an emissions trading scheme, and exactly the sort of thing we should be doing here. Unfortunately, our politicians have consistently voted against using the RMA to regulate climate change emissions, instead preferring to leave it all to a (still non-existent) market. the result can be seen in our emissions history - massive growth, interrupted only by periodic recessions.

Overseas jurisdictions - e.g. Norway - show us that the most effective policy is a mix of markets and regulation. Unfortunately our policy-makers are still firmly wedded to the religion of the free market, eschewing all other measures as "impure". That has to change. Otherwise, we are simply committing ourselves to more ineffective policy, and more emissions growth.