National Journal 'Experts' Mull Climate Policy, IPCC Snafus

In its Energy and Environment blog, National Journal published thoughts on the issue of Senate Democrats possibly pressuring EPA to delay GHG regulations to allow more time for Congress to act. Jonathan Adler, a professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, suggested Congress rewrite the Clean Air Act and establish a more workable policy for restricting GHGs. American Iron and Steel Institute President and CEO Thomas Gibson said EPA regulation would "exacerbate the competitiveness problems facing energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries by increasing their costs while their overseas competitors continue to avoid regulation. Only a comprehensive legislative approach to climate change can address the important international competitiveness and carbon-leakage issues."

Bill Snape, senior counsel for the Center for Biological Diversity, said EPA should act quickly because "federal agencies already possess the tools under the Clean Air Act and other statutes to begin addressing the problem. There is no reason to wait. If Congress wants to add some progressive mechanisms ... into the mix, then so be it. But the federal and state agencies with legal authority must make their move, transparently and objectively, without delay" because the atmosphere continues to warm.

Two blog entries differed significantly on admitted errors in reports by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Andrew Wheeler, senior VP of energy and climate-change practice at B&D Consulting, said the IPCC "has blurred the lines between science and advocacy to the point where it is unable to separate situational awareness from proposed remedies." Pew Center on Global Climate Change President Eileen Claussen said the IPCC needed to clean house, but "none of what we have recently heard or read changes the basic scientific consensus that human activities have increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere."