EPA's greenhouse gas ruling defies economic warning

By Jim Tankersley, Los Angeles Times:

The review team that prepared the assessment [of last month's decision by the Environmental Protection Agency about greenhouse gases] said the basis for the EPA's statement that greenhouse gases "overwhelmingly" endanger public health and welfare because they contribute to global warming was "especially weak."

Predictions of devastating climate change are "accompanied by uncertainties so large that they potentially overwhelm the magnitude of the harm," the report contended.

By contrast, the EPA's final conclusion was that the evidence in support of its finding was "compelling and, indeed, overwhelming . . . the product of decades of research by thousands of scientists from the U.S. and around the world. The evidence points ineluctably to the conclusion that climate change is upon us as a result of greenhouse gas emissions, that climatic changes are already occurring that harm our health and welfare, and that the effects will only worsen over time in the absence of regulatory action."

The EPA finding could lead to broad new regulations that could affect cars, power plants, factories and other emitters of the heat-trapping gases scientists blame for global warming.