Washington, 29 July (Argus) — The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today upheld its endangerment finding for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, denying several petitions that questioned the scientific basis for its decision.

EPA dismissed 10 petitions for reconsideration of its December 2009 finding that GHG emissions pose a threat to human health and welfare. The agency said it remained confident in its determination and that the petitions were based on “selectively edited, out-of-context data and a manufactured controversy.”

“The endangerment finding is based on years of science from the US and around the world,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said.

The finding serves as the basis for EPA efforts to regulate GHG emissions, including new CO₂ requirements for automobiles and permit rules for stationary sources that take effect in January. The petitions were filed by several Republican House members, the states of Texas and Virginia, coal producer Peabody Energy, Ohio Coal Association, US Chamber of Commerce, Competitive Enterprise Institute and other business and anti-regulatory groups.

EPA's decision should clear the way for lawsuits filed by many of the same parties and others in federal court seeking to overturn the endangerment finding. The court in June delayed hearing the lawsuits until mid-August to give EPA a chance to respond to the petitions.

The petitions made several assertions that sought to undermine the scientific credibility of EPA's finding, including that leaked e-mails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the UK showed an effort to manipulate global temperature data; errors in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report undermined the entire document; the IPCC report was biased because it did not include certain studies; and new scientific studies have refuted the endangerment finding.

EPA said it reviewed the CRU e-mails and found they were “simply a candid discussion of scientists working through issues that arise in compiling and presenting large complex data sets,” noting that four independent reviews have reached similar conclusions. EPA said it could find only two minor errors in the IPCC report, one related to Himalayan glacier melt and the other to the percentage of the Netherlands below sea level. Neither “undermines the basic facts” that climate change is occurring, EPA said. The reports petitioners claim were not included in the IPCC report were “in fact” part of the document, EPA said. And many of the recent studies cited by the petitioners “are consistent” with the endangerment finding, while others “were based on unsound methodologies,” EPA said.

EPA also said that two recent reports released by the National Academy of Sciences and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration both “fully support” the conclusion that climate change “is real and poses significant risk to human and natural systems.”

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