As people like "Green Miles" Grant and I have been predicting for a while now, this now looks like it's coming sooner rather than later.The Environmental Protection Agency has sent a proposal to the White House that would label carbon dioxide a danger to public welfare — a key precursor to regulating greenhouse gas emissions as pollutants.So, the urgent question for Virginia is whether or not we're going to be ready when a cap on carbon dioxide emissions comes into effect, possibly this year or early next year. Will Virginia move rapidly to institute aggressive energy efficiency measures so that power consumers aren't hit by higher energy bills? Will Virginia prepare to be the nation's leader in renewable energy R&D? Same question for clean tech. And what about our old friend Dominion Power, which dominates Richmond through the money it spreads around like a farmer spreads cow manure? Will our Dominion-friendly legislators finally move to "decouple" Dominion so that it has more incentive to save energy than to produce more dirty coal-fired power? Will they light a fire under Dominion's you-know-what to move towards a "smart grid" for Virginia? Or, will Virginia be woefully unprepared for what many of us have been saying for years was coming down the pike? It looks like we're going to find out soon enough.
The long-awaited finding, sent to the Office of Management and Budget, stems from a 2007 Supreme Court decision in which the agency was found to have the authority to regulate emissions that contribute to global warming.
If finalized, the proposal would permit the agency to begin such regulation — which the Obama administration has signaled is a priority.
P.S. If Virginia is NOT ready, don't say that nobody warned us.
