Setting laws to combat Climate Change

As the prospect of congress being capable of passing global warming and energy legislation this year has appeared to be dwindling, the E.P.A. announced that is working towards new rules that will regulate greenhouse gas emissions on power plants and large industrial facilities and these regulations could take effect as early as 2011. Hopefully this can spur on the passage of a climate bill this year.

President Obama has authorized the E.P.A. develop these proposed rules which would impact large power plants the most by requiring them to prove that they have utilized the best available technology to reduce emissions or face penalties. These facilities are responsible for nearly 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. This action to combat climate change is a step in the right direction for the United States leading up to the United Nation talks in Copenhagen in December, intended to creating an effective international agreement to address climate change; even if it is accomplished by creating rules instead of through the legislative process.

It is a known fact that our CO2 emissions will have an impact for a long time to come. The efforts we make today to reduce emissions will have a lag time of between 70-100 years to see the results. With that in mind, rules must be seen as part of the solution, but we must not stop there. We as a country have a moral responsibility to step up and lead by example and leave our political divisions behind.