White House Backs Off On CO2

The U.S. EPA has a proposed finding that CO2, along with five other gases, are greenhouse gases that cause harm to people by changing the climate.  This proposed finding is open for comment until June 23 of this year.  Today, however, Obama's White House issued a memo that appears to contradict what EPA did on this matter.  As reported today in the Wall Street Journal, 

"When the EPA ruled that greenhouse-gas emissions presented an "overwhelming case" for government regulation because of the threat of climate change, it may have gone too far, the White House said:

“The amount of acknowledged lack of understanding about the basic facts surrounding [greenhouse gases] seem to stretch the precautionary principle to providing regulation in the face of unprecedented uncertainty,” the memo reads."     

This is something to note, as it was the Obama White House that pushed the EPA to move on the CO2 issue, rather than let it languish as the Bush White House had following the Supreme Court's ruling in Massachusetts v EPA. 

So, is Obama reading the winds, here?  Are the voices of the climate realists finally being heard?  Or, is Obama waiting for a more favorable moment, when summer temperatures have erased the public memory of all the snow, ice, and truly cold weather of 2008-2009.   But then, if this wet Spring portends a shortened growing season, as some predict, there may not be a good time this year to resurrect this.  

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.