In the second week of March, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established monitoring rules so the federal government can track and inventory emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Congress called for the implementation of such a regulatory framework back in 2007, but the Bush administration dragged its feet, leaving the work to the current administration.

This GHG emission reporting mechanism will cover the entire nation's 13,000 or so largest fossil fuel burning facilities which amounts to close to 90 per cent of all climate change pollution.  With these rules in place, it will be very easy to initiate a national "cap and trade" system as has been called upon by Obama and other U.S. and Canadian leaders.

“By moving quickly to develop regulations that had stalled under the previous administration, Administrator Lisa Jackson clearly recognizes the urgency of addressing the climate crisis,” said David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “The Obama administration understands that we need strong leadership by the White House and Congress to meet our nation's challenges—moving to a clean energy future, jumpstarting our economic recovery, and cutting global warming pollution.”

This will ultimately put enormous pressure on the Harper government to move in the same direction.  We have a number of provinces already starting in that direction.  There is a noticable group of holdouts.  But this downturn in the economy could be the mechanism to implement a system like this as emissions are likely down at this time and when they do come back, the government could be in a position to influence how they ramp up their production.

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