The biggest danger to the U.S. construction sector is not the sub-prime mortgage crisis … it is the chance that this Administration, or the next, will regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act (CAA). As The Heartland Institute notes, once CO2 is deemed “regulated” under the CAA, no new or existing “major” stationary source of CO2 can be built or modified without first obtaining a Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permit. The problem with CAA regulation of CO2, is that the Act was never designed to regulate an emission as …
Contrary to popular belief, the Supreme Court’s 5 to 4 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA did not require the EPA to issue rules regulating the emission of carbon dioxide. Instead it instructed the agency to ground its reason for action or inaction within the statutory requirements of the Clean Air Act. Carbon emissions are a ubiquitous and unavoidable byproduct of all fossil fuel combustion, which currently provides 85% of America’s energy. A finding that carbon emissions endanger the public health under the Clean Air Act would trigger a massively complex …
