In an exclusive interview with CarbonInsider.com, the director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Change Division indicated that the agency is anticipating widespread carbon regulatory restrictions on business. EPA is moving ahead with preparations that could well include imposing on industry mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions which experts have said lead to global warming. Investors and corporations are watching closely to see how regulations are eventually structured.
In her interview with Carbon Insider, Dina Kruger, Director of the EPA’S Climate Change Division noted that as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court decision, the agency is studying how to proceed with regulating greenhouse gas emissions under a mandate from the Clean Air Act. But the agency insists it has not developed a preferred regulatory framework for dealing with climate change regulation, even as investors and corporations expect some kind of cap-and-trade approach to be legislated.
“We have not developed a position on the best way to regulate greenhouse gas emissions,” said Kruger. “What we are doing is trying to proceed in a very measured way…A lot of people are looking to Congress for thoughts on how to do this through legislation.”
Still, Kruger commented EPA has become a major source of information on the cap-and-trade strategy currently in use in Europe for regulating carbon reduction. “EPA has expertise in the design and running of cap-and-trade programs,” Kruger told Carbon Insider. “We get a lot of questions from members of Congress and others about how it could work — what the issues are, what are the lessons learned from the European system and we are doing our best to answer them. But again we look to Congress to establish such a program.”
Added Kruger, “The next Administration will be coming in and they are going to be looking across climate policy and providing their own direction and guidance.”
