BIOMASS HUB

Speaking at the National Press Club Monday, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jacksonoutlined the goals of the agency and emphasized a need to capitalize on the growing green marketplace.

In her remarks, she challenged the anti-government and anti-science skeptics to take a hard look at the evidence of environmental degradation and challenged them to embrace sustainability — not as a decision between environmental protection and economic growth — but as a strategy for achieving both aims.

[T]he laissez-faire and anti-government crowd must understand that ever-expanding economic opportunity is not possible without sustainability. Without protection for the water, air and land that people depend on, we can only go so far. Without clean energy, the global economy will be running on empty within our lifetimes. It’s time to stop denying that obvious truth, stop playing on the politics of delay and denial, and start thinking more broadly about what is going to help us all move forward together.

On the subject of environmental protection, she notes:

Well-conceived, effectively implemented environmental protection is good for economic growth. Let me repeat that: environmental protection is good for economic growth. Don’t get me wrong – environmental regulations are not free. But the money that’s spent is an investment in our country – and one that pays for itself.

Jackson outlined two reasons why the environmental protection is good for the U.S. economy: 1) it makes us healthier, eliminating contributors to costly and often deadly diseases like asthma, cancer and heart disease; and 2) makes our communities more prosperous and our workforce more productive.

Smart environmental protection does. It creates a need – in other words, a market for clean technology – and then drives innovation and invention – in other words, new products for that market.

Jackson used the opportunity to pay tribute to the EPA’s history:

This year marks EPA’s 40th Anniversary. When EPA began 40 years ago, the first Administrator William Ruckelshaus wrote “The technology which has bulldozed its way across the environment must now be employed to remove impurities from the air, to restore vitality to our rivers and streams, to recycle the waste that is the ugly by-product of our prosperity.” That is just as true now as it was then.

The EPA has been entangled in a dog fight with legislators over whether regulation or legislation is the best approach to GHG mitigation.  With newly minted authority to regulate GHGs under the Clean Air Act, the EPA has been saddled with legal and legislative challenges.