EPA Endangerment Finding Will Undermine Recovery

Following the Environmental Protection Agency's announcement on Monday that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health, AGC issued a statement calling for the administration to rethink its misguided approach. AGC said that the finding will delay construction activity, undermine economic recovery and push construction unemployment above its current 19.4 percent rate.  AGC pointed out that while it fully supports measures to improve our environment, EPA's announcement will make it harder to build the greener future our planet needs.  Every construction project in America is now likely to be put on standby until federal bureaucrats decide whether or not to grant Clean Air Act permits, making it even hard to construct efficient new buildings, cut polluting traffic or retrofit existing inefficient buildings. A final endangerment finding for greenhouse gases is a key step to begin regulating these emissions using the Clean Air Act: which could drive up the costs of materials used in construction, require expensive permits for new construction and major upgrades to stationary sources, and jeopardize federal funding for highway and transportation projects in states that are not compliant with any new air quality standards that would be required under the Act.  AGC submitted a comment letter to EPA on the proposed endangerment finding in June 2009.  The latest issue of AGC's Environmental Observer featured an update on the legislative and regulatory issues related to greenhouse gases. For more information, contact Melinda Tomaino at tomainom@agc.org.