EPA Releases Report on Climate Change and Health

[sharon sanders]

EPA Releases Report on Climate Change and Health


Release date: 07/17/2008

(Washington, D.C. - July 17, 2008) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released a report that discusses the potential impacts of climate change on human health, human welfare, and communities in the U.S. The report, entitled "Analyses of the Effects of Global Change on Human Health and Welfare and Human Systems," also identifies adaptation strategies to help respond to the challenges of a changing climate and identifies near- and long-term research goals for addressing data and knowledge gaps.

The report discusses the challenges and potential effects of climate change, including unusual or unexpected weather, and how some individuals and communities may be disproportionately affected by climate change, including the elderly, the poor, children, and people with chronic medical conditions. However, the U.S. has well-developed public health infrastructures and environmental programs that protect our air and water, which can help minimize the impacts.

The Global Change Research Program in EPA's Office of Research and Development led the development of this report. It is one of 21 synthesis and assessment products commissioned by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.

The peer-reviewed report is the most up-to-date synthesis and assessment of scientific literature on the impact of global change on human health, welfare and settlements in the United States. It was developed following the guidelines developed by the CCSP.

The CCSP was established in 2002 to provide the Nation with science-based knowledge to manage the risks and opportunities of change in the climate and related environmental systems. The program is responsible for coordinating and integrating the research of 13 federal agencies on climate and global change.

Information on Analyses of the Effects of Global Change on Human Health and Welfare and Human Systems: http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/cfm/recordisplay.cfm?deid=197244

The Office of Research and Development's Global Change Research Program: epa.gov/ord/npd/globalresearch-intro.htm

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP): http://www.climatescience.gov/

 

[Oracle]

Re: EPA Song and Dance

Re: EPA Song and Dance

Many In Bush Administration Reversed On Greenhouse Gases.


WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Bush administration officials, including the energy secretary, had originally agreed that greenhouse gases posed a danger to the public and should be regulated under existing clean-air laws - but later reversed course amid opposition from Vice President Dick Cheney's office and the oil industry, a new U.S. congressional report says.

The White House rejected the findings of the U.S. House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, chaired by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. " Chairman Markey's report is inaccurate to the point of being laughable," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. "I admire his imagination."

The report offers a look at the breadth of Bush administration support for new regulations before such plans abruptly stopped, although at least one cabinet secretary strongly disputes its findings. It draws heavily on an interview with a former Environmental Protection Agency official who already has told Congress about the role played by Cheney's office. It is also based on confidential interviews with EPA staff and documents subpoenaed from the EPA.

"This is the dysfunctions and motivations of the Bush administration laid bare," said Markey in a statement. "The fact that they can, with near unanimity, completely switch positions on global warming to please the oil industry is shocking, and yet disappointingly predictable."

For months, Congress has been investigating a series of decisions by EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, including stopping California from regulating motor-vehicle greenhouse-gas emissions. But new details have trickled out through previous congressional reports showing that Johnson had originally sided at least in part with EPA staff on several fronts, including that greenhouse-gas emissions pose a danger to the public and should be regulated. As a more complicated picture of interagency discussions emerged, the role played by Cheney's office has come to assume a more central focus.

"I don't accept their premise," said Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Cheney's office. The report said that the oil industry argued against regulatory action, had the support of Cheney's office and that the Bush administration ultimately did the oil industry's bidding. "Frankly, that's ridiculous," she said.

Jason Burnett, a former EPA associate deputy administrator who played a key role in coordinating the agency's climate-change activities, told the House committee that people in Cheney's office and within the Office of Management and Budget, a White House organization that coordinates administration policy, felt regulations would reflect negatively on Bush's legacy.

"The concern was over the president's legacy and not wanting to have an increase in regulation, particularly regulation under the Clean Air Act, to be attributed to this administration and to President Bush's legacy," the report said. Burnett didn't return a phone call.

The report for the first time named F. Chase Hutto III, Cheney's energy adviser, as someone who argued against new regulations, along with individuals from Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and the American Petroleum Institute. It didn't identify the individuals from Exxon or API by name. It also says that Bush's deputy chief of staff, Joel Kaplan, along with Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez had originally endorsed an EPA finding that greenhouse-gas emissions endanger public welfare and should be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

Those government officials last week signed a letter saying that the Clean Air Act wasn't an appropriate vehicle for regulating greenhouse-gas emissions. A Commerce Department spokeswoman didn't immediately respond. Brian Turmail, a spokesman for Transportation Secretary Peters, said that she "was involved in an intellectual process to explore whether the Clean Air Act was an appropriate vehicle for regulating fuel-economy standards. The decision was 'no.' You shouldn't confuse engaging in an intellectual exercise with supporting the idea."

The Cheney spokeswoman said that "White House staffers are paid to go into a meeting and offer their advice and thoughts, and that's what Chase was doing." Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers said he didn't know who from Exxon made the company's case, but that "it's not a secret what our views are." He said that Exxon believes that the Clean Air Act isn't the appropriate way to regulate carbon emissions.

Angela Hill, an Energy spokeswoman, said that Energy Secretary Bodman "has not reversed course," and said that "the Department of Energy believes that the Clean Air Act is fundamentally ill-suited to the effective regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions."

API spokeswoman Karen Matusic said that it isn't unusual for the group to meet with federal agencies "on areas of mutual concern," and that its view that the Clean Air Act isn't appropriate for regulating greenhouse-gas emissions has repeatedly been made public.

Fratto's initial reaction was that "Chairman Markey continues to miss the point. We agree that there are health impacts from climate change. We agree that climate is changing. And we agree that humans contribute to climate change. The problem isn't these facts. The problem is determining how to deal with them. Since climate change is global, it should be dealt with in a global agreement, and that's what we're focused on."

The Clean Air Act has become a central focus of energy debate following a 2007 Supreme Court decision that found that greenhouse gases were pollutants and ordered the EPA to determine whether they posed a danger that required regulation. While the Supreme Court decision dealt only with motor-vehicle emissions, determining that greenhouse-gas emissions posed a danger would almost certainly have forced the EPA to regulate emissions across the economy, from power plants to oil refineries.

In December 2007, Congress raised motor-vehicle fuel-economy standards for the first time since the 1970s. The Bush administration had wanted the law to strip the EPA of its ability to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions, the report said, but Congress didn't oblige. "Shortly thereafter, Bush administration officials began to publicly question the need for further EPA efforts to regulate greenhouse gases from motor vehicles," the report said.

Among the people who changed their positions was Kaplan, Bush's deputy chief of staff, the report says. Last December, almost immediately after the EPA e- mailed a finding that greenhouse gases posed a danger, Kaplan telephoned EPA Administrator Johnson and asked that the finding be retracted on the grounds that it was sent in error.

"EPA Administrator Johnson refused to do so, and stated that it had not been sent in error, and in fact was prepared and submitted with the concurrence of Mr. Kaplan in the first place," the report says. An EPA spokesman didn't respond to a question about the new evidence that a host of administration officials had also changed their views.

See also: EPA head reversed stand on greenhouse gas after White House input.
The Associated Press, Monday May 19, 2008
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2008/05/epa_head_reversed_stand_on_gre.html

Overview:

http://newsfeedresearcher.com/data/articles_n29/idn2008.07.18.12.20.46.html#hdng3