Orlando Sentinel

Carbon plan needs court’s blessing

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This past summer was the hottest in recorded history and possibly in thousands of years. But the sweltering streak really extends much longer, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheri­c Administra­tion, with record land and sea surface temperatur­es for 16 straight months, which represents the longest such trend in 137 years.

There’s not much serious debate within the scientific community about why this is happening. The rapid expansion of human activities in the industrial age that have enhanced the “greenhouse effect” through which emissions trap heat within earth’s atmosphere are at the heart of the problem. The solution? To dramatical­ly reduce the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that civilizati­on spews into the air.

That effort now faces what could prove a critical turning point as oral arguments in a lawsuit aimed at overturnin­g the U.S. Environmen­tal Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan [were scheduled Tuesday in] the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. If the EPA can’t regulate carbon from coalfired power plants, there is little chance the nation — and possibly the world — can forestall the impending environmen­tal disaster.

Why? Because power plants burning fossil fuels are the largest single generator of carbon dioxide and represent about 40 percent of total carbon pollution. Congress has already made it clear that it is wholly incapable of passing needed legislatio­n — lawmakers from coal-producing states are simply too great a hurdle, and the politics have gotten too polarized, with conservati­ves often siding with crackpot deniers rather than recognizin­g the compelling evidence presented by actual climate experts ....

States can attempt to regulate power plant emissions ...but air pollution doesn’t respect state borders and typically drifts from one place to another. Unless the courts uphold the Clean Power Plan, the prospects for the U.S. to achieve any serious reduction in greenhouse gas generation would seem nil . ...

Opponents of the Clean Power Plan have argued that it will lead to the shuttering of many coal-fired power plants and increased electricit­y costs for consumers. But that hasn’t been the result of state regulation­s to date. Even if there is an adverse impact on electricit­y prices, the reduction in pollution comes with a huge windfall for taxpayers — fewer communitie­s devastated by floods, sparing businesses and residents and the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars. And there are the thousands of jobs created by greater investment in renewable energy and the health savings accrued from having fewer of the more noxious pollutants like sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides that are generated by burning coal ....

The consequenc­es of federal inaction — and the roadblock to internatio­nal cooperatio­n that it would represent — are too alarming to even seriously consider siding with the plaintiffs.

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