Protesters with Greenpeace showed up at the Environmental Protection Agency's public comment session at the agency's headquarters in Arlington, Va., on Monday to support the EPA’s finding that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health. (Photo by Penny Starr/CNSNews.com)
(CNSNews.com) – The Environmental Protection Agency announced last week that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, and on Monday, the agency held the first of two hearings to hear what the public thinks of its finding.
 
Among the dozens of people offering comments on Monday, one Muslim leader claimed that the war on terror is “really a euphemism” for the battle to control the world’s oil supply.
 
Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, the director of outreach at the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Virginia and the head of government relations for the Muslim Alliance of North America, told EPA officials his comments might be upsetting to some.
 
“I believe sometimes the war on terror is really a euphemism for the wars for oil and natural gas,” Abdul-Malik said at the all-day comment session held at EPA headquarters in Arlington. “Maybe if it were the Hindus who had oil under their feet there would be Hindu fundamentalists and extremists.”
 
Abdul-Malik called for the creation of new sources of energy that are clean and renewable: “America has the opportunity once again to lead -- to lead the world against the new terror, climate change.” Abdul-Malik said.
 
Legislation or regulation?
 
The EPA’s finding that greenhouse gases “endanger the public health and welfare of current and future generations" -- as stated in the Federal Register on Friday – paves the way for the agency to regulate pollution under the Clean Air Act, without waiting for Congress to pass “global warming” legislation.
 
Some of the speakers at Monday’s hearing urged the EPA to act quickly, even before Congress does.
 
Meanwhile, across the river in Washington, the House Energy and Commerce Committee took up cap-and-trade legislation on Monday. The bill would charge large energy producers for each ton of pollution they emit. That cost would be passed on to consumers. A vote on the bill could come by the end of the week.
 
President Barack Obama apparently prefers legislation to regulation.
 
Science vs. theory
 
The EPA says its finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health is based on “rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific analysis” of six gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydroflouorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride.
 
But at Monday’s hearing, global warming skeptics also weighed in. They include S. Fred Singer, founder and president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project and professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia.
 
“In my professional opinion, the EPA endangerment finding is fatally flawed and should be rejected,” said Singer, who also has served as a deputy assistant administrator at the EPA.
 
“Its science is based primarily on the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (and) the IPCC conclusion about the human cause of climate change is not supported by any kind of credible evidence. None whatsever,” he insisted.


Rep. James Moran (D-Va.) blamed the Bush administration and House Republicans for the alleged global warming crisis. (Photo by Penny Starr/CNSNews.com)
“Their so-called proof of a human cause relies solely on computer models, which have never been verified by atmospheric data,” Singer said. “Remember, in science, data trumps theory.”
 
Bush bashing
 
At a midday press conference, environmental activists and two members of Congress blamed former President George W. Bush and the oil and gas industries for the alleged global warming crisis. At the same time, they heaped praise on the Obama administration.
 
"There are very fine people at the Environmental Protection Agency, very good professionals," Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) said at the conference. He said the 2000 election was one of “great consequence,” because in a race between an “ardent environmentalist (John Kerry) and an “anti-environmentalist” (Bush), "the oil guy won."
 
The consequences, Moran aid, have been "all negative."
 
“The Bush administration populated EPA and other related agencies with people who came from the oil and gas industry, the timber cutting industry… people who extracted natural resources for profit,” Moran said.
 
Moran chided his Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives for continuing to “bring up these half-baked ideas by these phony scientists that global warming is not real.”
 
Moran suggested that global-warming doubters are hacks: “For the most part, if you look at these scientists, they’ve been paid by these industries to come up with this opinion,” Moran said. “So they’re the worst of the worst, if you will, people who are an embarrassment to their profession.”
 
Moran praise the Obama administration for finally recognizing “the importance of global warming“ and for being “ready to use EPA the way it was intended to be used.”
 
“Global warming is an immediate, direct, real threat to the public’s health and welfare, and the EPA not only has the authority, they have the responsibility to protect the public’s health.”


Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) said at a press conference at the EPA comment session in Arlington, Va., on Monday that the Obama administration, unlike the Bush administration, is counting on science to promote its energy policies. (Photo by Penny Starr/CNSNews.com)
Moran added that the Obama administration “understands that you can clean up the environment and you can stimulate the economy same time.”
 
“Isn’t it a nice change to have an administration that actually relies on science?” freshman Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) said at the conference. “Now that the EPA is free of political meddling, it’s used the best scientific data available to issue its determination that greenhouse gas pollution is indeed covered under the Clean Air Act.”
 
Roger Pielke, a senior research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado in Boulder, the EPA finding “promotes a political agenda.” He posted his comments on the CIRES Web site.
 
Pielke is calling for an “independent commission of climate scientists” to evaluate what led the EPA to conclude that greenhouse gases endanger the public health. He says the independent commission should also look into the climate science on which the EPA finding is based.
 
Anna Aurilio, the Washington, D.C., director of the Environment America, a coalition of state environmental activist groups, warned at the press conference that the battle is not over.
 
“It’s time to unleash the power of clean energy to both help our economy and save the planet, Aurilio said. “Sadly, the profiteers of the status quo – and I’m talking about big oil and king coal – and public officials who do their bidding are working very, very hard to undermine this progress.”