commentEPA Declares Greenhouse Gases a Threat to Humans
Late last year, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson released the agency’s ruling that greenhouse gases are a threat to humans. This ruling puts greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride—under the regulatory authority of EPA, which could have direct and indirect impacts on the building industry.
EPA’s endangerment ruling covers several types of greenhouse gases, including hydrofluorocarbons and others with high global warming potential (GWP).
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The endangerment finding, as the ruling is known, comes two years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases were a pollutant as defined by the Clean Air Act, and therefore fall under EPA’s jurisdiction. EPA proposed the endangerment finding in April 2009 and, after a 60-day public comment period, sorted through and responded to over 380,000 comments before releasing the final ruling.
Both Jackson and President Obama support a legislative solution to greenhouse gas regulation, and hope that the climate bill passed by the House will move quickly through the Senate. In an October 2009 Senate hearing on clean energy legislation, Jackson said, “Even as the President and the members of his Cabinet move forward under existing authority, we continue urging Congress to pass a new clean-energy law.” The endangerment finding gives EPA a backup option for regulating emissions, an option many critics oppose as government meddling. Keith McCoy, vice president of energy and resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers, argued, “The endangerment finding will have a cascading effect on the ability of all manufacturers to grow and prosper.”
Environmental organizations generally laud the ruling, recognizing that it will help to nudge Congress to act. “EPA’s announcement is a wake-up call for legislative action by the United States Senate that will reduce global warming pollution and expand America’s clean energy economy,” according to an Environmental Defense Fund press release issued the same day as the endangerment finding.
EPA’s announcement focused on greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, but the finding opens the door for regulation of emissions in a variety of industries, including the building industry. In a comment on the proposed endangerment finding, the National Association of Home Builders noted, “While homebuilding is not a source category of air pollution traditionally regulated by EPA under the Clean Air Act, addressing GHGs [greenhouse gases] under the Act will almost certainly lead to significant adverse impacts, both direct and indirect, on the industry.”
It’s not yet clear, however, what the impacts on the building industry might be. Of particular interest is what effect this might have on hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) used as refrigerants in HVAC equipment and blowing agents in foam insulation. These compounds are hundreds or thousands of times more potent greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide. A requirement to move away from HFCs, coming on the heels of the conversion from hydrochlorofluorocarbons to HFCs, could be a challenge for manufacturers. EPA has also indicated that it will move to regulate large, static sources of carbon dioxide emissions, such as cement kilns, which could affect the building industry.
Copyright 2010 by BuildingGreen, LLC
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