The Western Business Roundtable has launched a nationwide grassroots campaign to help citizens express their opposition to a plan by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to unilaterally begin regulating Main Street America's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions .

EPA has announced it intends to make a so-called "endangerment finding," designating GHG emissions as a public health danger.  That will allow the Agency to unilaterally begin to regulate most of Main Street America under the Clean Air Act, thereby end-running the legislative debate now raging in Congress over the merits vs. costs of federal climate regulations. 

The proposed EPA plan would allow Washington bureaucrats to force millions of farms, ranches, small  businesses, building owners, factories and even some schools and hospitals to seek highly complicated and costly air emissions permits just to continue operations.  It would also make those sources vulnerable to lawsuites from environmental extremists.

To understand how expansive the EPA power would be, consider this:  any source that emits the amount of GHG emissions equivalent  to that emitted of 13 average single family homes in New England heated with home heating oil would now be covered.  Here's what that means for just several key commercial sectors: 

• Manufacturing -- The majority of all small, mid-sized and large manufacturing businesses—over 300,000 facilities—would potentially become regulated stationary emissions sources. On average, any manufacturing firm with over 12,000 square feet of operations would be regulated for CO_2.
   
• Commercial Buildings -- Over 400,000 buildings in the U.S. emit enough CO₂ per year to become targets of EPA regulation. On average, a business operating in a building over 40,000 square feet in size would potentially become a regulated stationary source. That threshold would include 28 percent of all educational buildings and 25 percent of all medical and health care facilities in the country if they are not exempted by the state where they are located.
   
• Farms -- Over 150,000 farms -- 85 percent of the nation’s total -- could find themselves regulated for CO₂.

Roundtable CEO Jim Sims says of the EPA plan:  "Not only is this a breathtaking power grab by EPA, but it gives the green light to environmental extremist groups to file lawsuits against virtually every farm, ranch, small business and industry sector in the nation seeking to force those entities to regulate their CO2 emissions or face closure." 

The Roundtable has launched a "Take Action" tool allowing citizens to send their comments of opposition to President Obama and EPA officials here.

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