№255. US Climate Change Policy Efforts
№255. US Climate Change Policy Efforts

Author(s): Dallas Burtraw
Subject(s): Energy and Environmental Studies, Physical Geopgraphy, Environmental and Energy policy, Government/Political systems, Environmental interactions
Published by: CEPS Centre for European Policy Studies
Keywords: No. 255. US Climate Change Policy Efforts; greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; Clean Air Act; Environmental Protection Agency;
Summary/Abstract: Until recently, most of the attention in US climate policy was focused on legislative efforts to introduce a price on carbon through cap and trade. Since that policy has stalled, at least at the national level, the Clean Air Act has assumed the central role in the development of regulations that will reduce green house gas (GHG) emissions in the US. The modern Clean Air Act (CAA) was passed in 1970 and conveys broad authority to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop regulations to mitigate harm from air pollution. In 2007 the Supreme Court confirmed that this authority applied to the regulation of GHGs (Massachusetts v.EPA). Subsequently, the agency made a formal, science-based determination that GHGs were dangerous to human health and the environment, which compels the agency to mitigate the harm and forms the basis for the agency’s regulation of GHG emissions.

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