Markey: EPA Endangerment Finding Will End 'Era of Denial'

Markey Investigation Discovered Bush Admin. Switched Positions on Endangerment;
Finding Would Aid in Enacting Federal Cap on Emissions, Says Chairman

WASHINGTON (March 23, 2009) – Media reports indicate that the Environmental Protection Agency sent a proposal to the White House on Friday determining that global warming is, in fact, a danger to public health and welfare, as part of a long-awaited response to the landmark 2007 global warming Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v EPA. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who chairs key global warming panels in the House, praised the move by the Obama administration, after years of avoidance by the previous administration.

“This finding will officially end the era of denial on global warming,” said Rep. Markey. “Instead of allowing political interference in scientific and legal decisions, as was the case in the previous administration, the Obama administration is letting the sun shine in on the dangerous realities of global warming.”

An investigative report issued in the Summer of 2008 by Chairman Markey and his Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming found that members of government at the highest levels, including the office of President George W. Bush’s Chief of Staff and numerous heads of Cabinet departments, had decided to use the Clean Air Act to regulate global warming emissions not only from vehicles, but also from power plants, refineries, and other so-called stationary sources – but reversed their decision in the face of strong opposition from ExxonMobil and others within the oil industry, as well as from at least one senior adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.

For more details on that investigation, CLICK HERE.

Chairman Markey and Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) of the Energy and Commerce Committee are currently drafting climate and energy legislation to control the emissions that cause global warming. An endangerment finding would send a strong signal to companies and industries that pump heat-trapping pollution into the atmosphere that they will, one way or another, have to curb such emissions -- thereby enhancing prospects for enactment of a federal cap on global warming emissions.

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