City Joins with States | Green Energy News

October 19, 2003 – Vol.8 No.30

CITY JOINS WITH STATES.

The City of Baltimore has joined 12 states in legal action against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over carbon dioxide emissions, but the State of Maryland which surrounds the city, won’t. The governor of the state, Robert L. Ehrlich (R), wants the state to join regional partnerships to address the carbon dioxide issue, yet has given no specifics about these partnerships.

The lead plaintiff in the suit, the International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA), claims that the EPA must regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act. The rational is that carbon dioxide is a cause of global warming and global warming is expected to harm humans. The Clean Air Act is supposed to regulate emissions that do harm.

The EPA says no, it isn’t required by the law to regulate carbon dioxide.

It should be noted, however, that neither side has made the point that carbon dioxide can, at high levels of concentration, cause suffocation and death. Carbon dioxide by itself - even without the link to global warming - is harmful to humans (sickness and death). Visit the ICTA (legal pages) at http://www.icta.org/legal/index.htm