The fate of the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest move to fight climate change, by targeting airlines, could be left up to a Republican administration.
The EPA said Wednesday that any plan to regulate emissions from jetliners wouldn’t be issued until after President Obama has left office.
The agency took the first step toward that plan Wednesday, saying that the emissions from commercial jet aircraft cause climate change, “endangering the health and welfare of Americans.” The “endangerment finding” is the first step the agency must take before proposing regulations to require the airlines to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that many scientists say is the root of manmade climate change.
But on a call with reporters, a senior EPA official appeared to downplay the announcement as a procedural step, voicing repeatedly that the announcement should not be confused with actual regulations.
The endangerment finding is a proposal, and not a final action, according to the agency. The agency will take comments on its scientific analysis for 60 days once it is published in the Federal Register.
Chris Grundler, the head of the agency’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, told reporters several times that Wednesday’s announcement initiates the process of regulation, but EPA is “not actually proposing standards at this time.”
Grundler confirmed that any regulations would not be finished until after the 2016 presidential elections, suggesting it would be up to the next administration to move forward, or not, with the final regulations.
“Should the administrator make a final determination [of harm], the earliest a notice of proposed rulemaking [could be issued] would be in 2017, and a final rule a year later in 2018,” Grundler said.
But Republicans aren’t playing the waiting game, slamming the emission rules as another of the Obama administration’s attempts to establish specious regulations that would drive up costs for consumers.
House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said the “sky is the limit when it comes to how much of the U.S. economy the EPA wants to control.”
Smith said the EPA’s “finding that emissions from commercial airplanes are harmful to human health … opens the door for new regulations” that would “increase the price of airfare for Americans and harm our domestic carriers.”
“This proposal is the next leg of a nonstop journey by the EPA to control how Americans live, work and travel,” Smith said.
He said the fuel efficiency of commercial jetliners has increased by 70 percent over the last five decades, and market “incentives are already in place to make air travel more energy efficient” without the rules.
But environmentalists don’t like the EPA’s actions, either, though on the opposite side of the debate from Smith. Environmental groups like Earth Justice think the agency is moving to adopt regulations that are too lax and not stringent enough.
Part of the reason the EPA moved ahead with the aircraft finding was due to environmental groups suing the agency to take action. But Earth Justice attorney Sarah Burt said the EPA is not living up to its obligations.
“We commend EPA for completing this important first step in regulating carbon pollution from airplanes, but unfortunately, given the magnitude of aircraft’s contribution to climate change, the tentative approach that EPA is considering is not up to the task,” Burt said.
The endangerment finding “confirms that aircraft are a significant source of climate pollution, emitting approximately 700 million metric tons per year,” she said. “This makes global aviation, if it were equivalent to a country, the seventh largest global emitter, just below Germany and more than Korea and Canada.”
But instead of going full-throttle with regulations that would tighten emission levels, the EPA appears to be on course to adopt an industry-favored rule being developed under the auspices of the United Nations, according to Burt.
Grundler said the EPA would be coordinating its efforts with the U.N.’s International Civil Aviation Organization, or ICAO, which is slated to issue an international emission standard next year. EPA’s endangerment finding for aircraft is not expected to be finalized until after that in spring 2016.
“We would issue a subsequent proposal to adopt those [ICAO] standards as part of our national standard,” he said.
Burt contends that the “EPA proposes to follow the lead of the International Civil Aviation Organization and set a ‘business-as-usual’ standard that will lock in emissions increases for decades to come.”
Burt says her organization will be urging EPA “to reconsider” its course with the UN group and use its much stronger regulatory powers “to fulfill its Clean Air Act obligations by proposing a rule that accomplishes meaningful reductions in pollution from aircraft.”
Grundler told reporters that whatever standard the EPA adopts, it “should drive emission reductions beyond business as usual.”
