EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson confirmed an analysis from her agency Tuesday that shows any effort the U.S. undertakes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will have no effect on the climate unless other countries also join in.
Her comment came as the U.S. Senate picks up the debate on controversial cap-and-trade legislation that won narrow approval last month in the House of Representatives.
As if on cue, the next day China, India and other developing countries refused to accept mandatory emissions controls that the Group of 8 nations, gathered in Italy for talks dominated by climate change, hoped they would agree to.
There may be a lesson here for Washington state officials, who have pondered either a state or regional cap-and-trade system.
U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the ranking Republican on the Senate and Environment and Public Works Committee, predicted that the failure of developing nations to join with the U.S. in reducing greenhouse gas emissions would doom the Waxman-Markey bill, the cap-and-trade legislation passed by the House.
"Unless supporters of cap-and-trade legislation can develop a plan to convince China and India to make meaningful emissions reductions on par with the United States, no such bill will pass the U.S. Senate," Inhofe said in a statement.
Then on Thursday, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate committee, told reporters that the committee would not finish writing a bill before the August recess, as she had hoped, but would tackle it instead in September.
Boxer said the delay would not jeopardize getting a bill through the Senate this year, according to the Washington Post, but she would not guarantee delivering a bill to President Obama by December when he plans to attend an international summit on climate change in Copenhagen.
If the EPA doesn't believe the U.S. can by itself impact the world climate through regulation, there is no reason to believe Washington state or the Western U.S. can go it alone either.
Regardless of whether Congress delivers a climate-change bill to the president this year, or whether China, India and other developing countries go along with the G8 nations, Washington businesses are reducing emissions as technology improves.
As one example, TransAlta is taking waste from its coal-fired power plant near Centralia and sending it to Tacoma where it is processed into synthetic gypsum used in "green" wallboard.
Businesses will continue reducing waste and emissions as technology advances - as long as they aren't put out of business by ineffectual regulations.
