Why the U.S. Waited So Long to Regulate Carbon Dioxide
And a difference we can make for tomorrow’s climate
I am an environmental engineer who studied air quality and atmospheric science. I know I have a lot to learn, but I thought I at least knew the very basics of air quality and its relationship with climate change.
I was wrong. I knew the basics of the science. Not the policy.
I have all of this knowledge about how carbon dioxide (CO₂) chemically impacts the oceans and coral, and how crops will struggle to grow while weeds have potential to thrive. But not about the policies that regulate the environment we live with.
To kickstart my education, I figured, why not read a nonpartisan book about some of the most prevalent environmental policy challenges to date. (I’d recommend reading How the Government Got in Your Backyard by Jeff Gillman and Eric Heberlig.)
I made my way through several chapters, learning about invasive species management and the strict lawncare rules of homeowners associations, as well as the key differences between organic and conventional farming.
But when I reached the chapter on climate change, one thing shocked me: CO₂ has only been regulated at any governmental level in the United States since 2007.
Wait. How could I have not known this?
And how did that tiny molecule become the face of global climate change?
Why Regulate CO₂?
CO₂, along with other molecules known as greenhouse gases (GHGs), has an incredible ability to absorb solar radiation in the atmosphere. This stored thermal energy raises the temperature of the atmosphere, which melts polar ice caps and is one component that leads to rising sea levels.
Carbon dioxide’s impact on the oceans doesn’t stop there.
The ocean’s capacity to store and release heat gives it a central role in stabilizing Earth’s climate.
As the ocean absorbs more heat and CO₂ from the atmosphere, it warms, expands, and acidifies. This can have a dramatic effect on calcifying species like corals, oysters, clams, urchins, and plankton.
Today, more than a billion people rely on food from the ocean as their primary source of protein.
Thus, jobs and food security in the U.S. and around the world depend on the fish and shellfish in the oceans.
Other sources of food are being impacted as well.
While all plants take up CO₂, not all respond in the same way to CO₂ enrichment. It depends on how they collect it from the air.
Most trees use something called a C3 pathway. Other plants, like corn, sugarcane, and some grasses, use a C4 pathway.
Plants that use the C3 pathway open their pores for longer to take in CO₂. The C4 pathway is more efficient, opening their pores for only a short time before they become satiated. (Desert plants use the C4 pathway to prevent losing moisture through their pores.)
When CO₂ concentration increases, C3 plants have the advantage. This can create changing weed dynamics that might significantly influence our crops as they are able to take up and use more CO₂ than their C4 counterparts.
This is only a small fraction of the long list of serious environmental impacts that carbon dioxide inflicts on the environment. Combined, each impact has potential to cause great economic loss, social upheaval, and migration of people across the globe.
With such devastating potential, why wasn’t carbon dioxide regulated sooner?
History of U.S. Air Policy
In October 1948, Donora, PA, was engulfed in haze. In less than a week, half of the 14,000-person town experienced severe respiratory or cardiovascular problems and the death toll reached 40.
It was hard to breathe.
But Donora was familiar with pollution. Steel and zinc smelters had long plagued the town with polluted air, brewing in the streets for residents to ingest them at fatal doses.
When this link between air pollution and industry was realized, states began passing legislation to curb it. And in 1970, Congress passed the monumental Clean Air Act.
Clean Air Act
The Clean Air Act (CAA) defines the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) “responsibilities for protecting and improving the nation’s air quality and the stratospheric ozone layer.”
A main pillar of this legislation was that it required a 90% reduction in emissions from new automobiles by 1975. Sounds good, right?
But here’s where it starts to get bizarre.
If you read the original Clean Air Act, it detailed how new cars must meet EPA emission standards for hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide (CO), and nitrogen oxides (NOx).
The law also directs the EPA to set health-based “National Ambient Air Quality Standards” (NAAQS) for six pollutants — carbon monoxide, lead (Pb), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), ozone (O₃), particulate matter and sulfur dioxide (SO₂) — that are harmful to public health and the environment.
This all sounds great. But something is missing.
Carbon dioxide.
CO₂ isn’t a “polluting gas” — rather, it is a harmful gas because it adds to the greenhouse effect.
But it wasn’t harmful in the right way and, thus, wasn’t regulated under the CAA.
So when did we realize the negative impact of carbon dioxide?
Kyoto Protocol
In 1998 the “most significant environmental treaty ever negotiated” at the time was signed by 192 nations and parties.
The Kyoto Protocol set targets for industrialized nations to decrease their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including CO₂.
The Bush administration withdrew the U.S. from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 because of the administration’s energy proposals, which emphasized the increase and exploration of fossil fuels.
The Protocol was never even submitted to the Senate for approval. The previous year, they voted 99-0 to urge the president not to sign any climate changes agreements that didn’t include standards for developing countries.
The administration not only refused to join the coalition of countries that met in Kyoto, they refused to even let the EPA classify one of the most prominent GHGs — carbon dioxide — as a pollutant.
So, let’s talk about the history of U.S. carbon dioxide policy. Or the lack of it.
U.S. CO₂ Policy
It’s actually not that long of a history. We’re only going back to 1999, the first year when the path to EPA regulation of greenhouse gases began.
The International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA) and 18 other organizations filed a petition for rulemaking with the EPA, requesting regulation of GHG emissions from new vehicles.
A timely four years later, the EPA published a notice denying the petition, stating they did not believe the Clean Air Act authorized regulation to deal with global climate change even if GHG regulation under the act was possible, the EPA gave a number of policy reasons why it did not think regulation of GHG emissions under the CAA was appropriate.
Just a month after this statement, the ICTA, 13 other environmental organizations, 12 states, three cities, and one U.S. territory filed a petition for review of the EPA’s decision with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
It was denied.
The EPA’s decisions were questioned further in 2005, when California decided to lead the charge for states taking regulation into their own hands. California submitted a request to the EPA that they waive the Clean Air Act’s prohibition against states adopting emissions standards for new vehicles, but didn’t hear back until 2007.
After years of dancing with the EPA, the Supreme Court released a groundbreaking decision. By a 5-4 vote, they ruled that the EPA had authority to regulate GHG emissions from new motor vehicles under the Clean Air Act.
The court strongly criticized the EPA’s decision in refusing to regulate GHG emissions from new motor vehicles, saying the statute contained a “sweeping definition” of air pollutants that “embraces all airborne compounds of whatever stripe,” and CO2 and other GHGs “without a doubt” fit the definition of “air pollutant.”
The next decade following the decision was a monumental time period for the policy and regulation of CO₂.
The Supreme Court reopened California’s case requesting for the state to make its own regulations on emissions standards for vehicles, granting them permission.
GHGs became a “regulated pollutant” for purposes of PSD and Title V permit programs for large industrial facilities
Emissions standards were placed on medium and heavy-duty vehicles.
President Obama released his Climate Action Plan regarding cutting carbon pollution and addressing climate change.
And in 2015, the United States made a huge stride in rejoining international efforts to control GHGs that contribute to global climate change.
The U.S. signed the Paris Climate Accord, the world’s first comprehensive climate agreement, with 196 other nations, committing to cutting carbon emissions by 26–28% by 2025.
But the climate policy took a huge blow in 2017, as the Trump Administration opted out of this international treaty.
Being involved in the international agreement is the status quo, even for smaller countries with much smaller carbon footprints. Pulling out puts the United States at odds with the other nations that joined the agreement to protect the global environment.
While one of the world’s top polluters repeatedly turns a blind eye, many nations continue to address carbon emissions as they build on policies they’ve had since Kyoto.
International CO₂ Policy
New Zealand has been a world climate policy leader, regulating CO₂ since creating the Climate Change Response Act 2002 in response to the Kyoto Protocol.
This act regulates carbon in the forestry sector, the agricultural sector, the waste sector, liquid fossil fuels, industrial activities, and more. A much broader response than others at the time.
The Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill, which further detailed actions to further prevent climate change, was passed in response to the Paris Climate Accord.
What has helped New Zealand control its carbon emissions can also be attributed to its use of carbon pricing, a principle where the polluter pays. An influential amendment in 2008 led to a cap-and-trade system in New Zealand.
This method of carbon pricing creates a market for companies to buy and sell allowances that let them emit only a certain amount while supply and demand set the price. The European trading system is one of the best known cap-and-trade systems.
But cap-and-trade isn’t the only method of carbon pricing. Many nations instead choose to use a carbon tax.
A carbon tax sets the level of supply and demand at the social optimum and avoids an externality if set on the right price. Prices lower than the actual social cost of carbon still lead to an undesirable level of pollution, but will still help to reduce emissions.
More than 40 governments worldwide have now adopted some sort of price on carbon, either through direct taxes on fossil fuels or through cap-and-trade programs.
The United States doesn’t federally regulate cap-and-trade or a carbon tax; however, 13 U.S. states that compose over a quarter of the country’s population have carbon pricing programs. California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey, and Virginia make up the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).
The RGGI is the first mandatory cap-and-trade program in the United States to limit carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector.
The United States seems to be a long ways away from federally enforcing carbon pricing, but for now, we can expect the RGGI to lead the way.
What Could U.S. Carbon Pricing Look Like?
“We know that we need to do things to make sure that we’re both supporting families, through ordinary times and through difficult times, and moving forward on continuing the fight against climate change — which remains, even at a time of immediate crisis and pandemic.” — Justin Trudeau
A federal carbon pricing system isn’t an unachievable item only found on some left-wing wish list.
Our northern neighbors are the only country in the world to have implemented both a carbon tax and cap-and-trade. The U.S. has the capability and responsibility to do the same.
What could carbon pricing in the United States look like?
First things first: We must create a mosaic of policies to regulate CO₂.
We need a combined carbon pricing system that uses both cap-and-trade and a carbon tax to more evenly distribute the cost of pollution on industry and consumers.
Every state has its own unique industries, economies, and environments. Allowing each state to create its own carbon pricing plan will allow for easier implementation and cooperation. So long as the plan meets set criteria established by the federal government.
And like Canada, the option should exist for states to use a plan created by the federal government if they are unwilling to create their own.
But what’s the incentive to create a plan and have carbon pricing?
It’s simple. Money collected from the carbon tax should be pooled and given back to the taxpayers as a rebate. The rebate amount can range depending on the state you reside in and the size of your household.
And a share of the pool can go to green projects within the state, such as funding green infrastructure, green technology, and organizations dedicated towards helping the environment.
While more than two-thirds of Americans believe the federal government is doing too little on climate change, according to a new Pew poll, it’s been an ongoing struggle for policymakers to address reform and change.
Decisions for Policymakers
Policymakers are in a bind. One where they fear overreacting and imposing substantial burdens on the economy but don’t yield many positive environmental impacts. If they don’t react because there’s no immediate crisis, they risk catastrophic, long-term environmental damage and a potentially worse burden on the economy.
The tug-of-war between constituents’ desires has led to little progress on CO₂ and climate policy. Not to mention the added influence of lobbyists. However, politicians are more likely to respond to their constituents who are most active on an issue and write, call, and attend town halls to voice their opinions.
So that’s what we must do.
Greenhouse gases are invisible and often occur naturally. They don’t produce a clear-cut environmental disaster.
It’s hard to rally politicians and the public against emitters — especially with the risks of inaction versus overreaction.
But quite frankly, it shouldn’t have taken nearly 40 years to regulate CO₂ since the passing of the Clean Air Act. The tiny molecule is the face of global climate change. It is now past time to join in the global effort to curb our emissions.
With carbon pricing, we can do that, it’s a difference we can make for tomorrow’s climate.
But remember, I just studied the science. Ask me in a couple years and I might have something better to say about the policy.
Charlee Thompson
Charlee has a B.S. in environmental engineering from the University of Illinois and a M.P.A. in environmental policy from the University of Washington. She currently works as a policy associate for the Northwest Energy Coalition in Washington State. She writes on sustainability, diversity, and fitness.
