Take A Deep Breath, Guys

The EPA is apparently serious about its decision today to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Business groups, led by the US Chamber of Commerce, are blowing a lot of hot air as Yggy says:

The idea that the EPA is going to transform the United States into a command-and-control economy is overblown. But it’s quite true that EPA efforts will be both less effective at combating climate change and also more expensive per unit of pollution-reduction than would be some alternative schemes. For example, the ACES bill steered through the House by Henry Waxman, Nancy Pelosi, and Ed Markey would be better on both fronts. But you don’t see the Chamber of Commerce or the NAM backing ACES. Even better than ACES from an economic point of view would be a bill with fewer side-deals, more auctioning of permits, and more rebates of the funds to the population. But you don’t see the Chamber or the NAM backing that, either. They just want to somehow sweep the whole problem under the rug and leave it up to their grandkids to suffer the consequences. There are a wide range of policy approaches that are consistent with the goal of averting catastrophic climate change, but this do nothing stance is not acceptable.

As the NY Times reports, it gives Obama a major card to play at Copenhagen next week.
(More after the jump...)

The move gives President Obama a significant tool to combat the gases blamed for the heating of the planet even while Congress remains stalled on economy-wide global warming legislation.

The Obama administration has signaled its intent to issue a so-called endangerment finding for carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases since taking office in January. Ms. Jackson announced a proposed finding in April and has taken steps to implement the rules that would be needed to back it up.

The administration has wielded the finding as a prod to Congress to act on legislation, saying in effect that if lawmakers do not act to control greenhouse gas pollution they will use their rule-making power to do so. At the same time, the president and his top environmental aides have frequently said that they prefer such a major step be taken through the give-and-take of the legislative process.

By pulling the trigger on EPA regulation, business groups are going to be turning to Congress now to give them much more favorable rules.  They're also most certainly going to tie up the regulations in court for as long as they humanly can.  It may in the end be a moot point.
It doesn't matter if the coasts flood, that doesn't affect the profits of, say, a midwestern power company.