EPA Rejects Challenges to Greenhouse Gas Regulation

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has denied ten petitions challenging its December, 2009 decision that greenhouse gases should be federally regulated due to their negative impact on the environment and human health.  The EPA’s response to the petitions, including one from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and another from the state of Texas, cites the “robust, voluminous, and compelling” scientific evidence for global climate change caused by human greenhouse gas emissions. 

Many of the petitioner’s reasons for challenging the EPA decision were based on the recent climate science email hacking, and the discovery of two errors in the 2007 IPCC report. However, several separate inquiries into the emails, including one by the EPA, found no evidence in the emails that undermines the conclusion that climate change is real and man-made.  The EPA also concluded that the two errors in the IPCC report, which were later corrected by the IPCC, don’t affect the overall conclusion that the climate is changing in unprecedented ways.