The European Union’s 27 member states have agreed to include the aviation industry in its carbon dioxide cap-and-trade scheme, and now pressure is mounting in the U.S. for the airline industry to be accountable for its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which account for roughly 3% of global emissions.
However, the Bush administration has threatened to take legal action against the E.U. should it seek to enforce the cap and it seems unlikely that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will move to regulate the airline industry while Bush remains in office.
Nonetheless a group of environmental organizations and states, including California, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New Mexico, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the City of New York, submitted a petition to the EPA last month calling for action on aviation emission.
In addition Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming today asked the EPA whether the agency has plans to regulate heat-trapping global warming emissions from America’s aviation sector, continuing the committee’s ongoing investigation into aviation’s increasing contribution to global warming and what can be done to reduce GHG emissions.
In April 2007, the Supreme Court affirmed the U.S. EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases.
"The EPA has a clear role to play in protecting Americans from the worst impacts of heat-trapping emissions that cause global warming. When it comes to the contribution of jet aviation to the looming threat of a climate catastrophe, the Bush administration’s attempts to fly under the radar have increasingly become a flight from reality," said Chairman Markey.
The Chairman sent a letter asking EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to answer several questions including:
- Does EPA support regulating the emissions of greenhouse gases from aircraft?
- What role, if any, did EPA play in the Administration’s threat of legal action against the EU should it seek to enforce a cap on the emissions of greenhouse gases from aviation?
- What advice, if any, has EPA provided to the FAA regarding the need to anticipate the regulation of CO2 and other emissions from commercial aviation?
- What is the status of EPA’s determination whether CO2 emissions cause or contribute to pollution that may reasonably be anticipated to be a danger to human health and welfare? ((
Chairman Markey sent a similar letter to the Federal Aviation Administration this fall. The FAA responded that they had not yet made any decision on regulating emissions, and looked to the EPA for advice on the matter of aviation pollution.
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