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States, Cities and Environmental Groups Urge EPA to Reduce Global Warming Pollution from Aircraft

Business Wire, Dec 5, 2007

WASHINGTON -- With Australia's recent decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the United States is the only developed nation that has refused to sign the climate change treaty. So today, a coalition of states, cities and environmental groups will petition the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce a massive source of global warming pollution: emissions from the global aircraft fleet.

Environmental non-profit law firm Earthjustice will file a petition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator on behalf of conservation groups Oceana, Friends of the Earth and the Center for Biological Diversity to urge regulation of warming pollution from the global aircraft fleet under the requirements of the Clean Air Act. We have requested a response from the EPA within 180 days.

Also filing a petition on the same issue today are the Attorneys General of California, Connecticut, New Jersey and New Mexico, the South Coast Air Quality Management District (smog control agency for Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernadino counties in Southern California), the City of New York (through its Corporation Counsel), the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the District of Columbia.

In 2005, aircraft contributed 3% of the United States' total carbon dioxide emissions and 12% of such emissions from the transportation sector. Globally, the United States is responsible for nearly half of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions from aircraft.

For a press release and a copy of both the environmental coalition's and states' petitions, please visit: http://www.oceana.org/climate/home/.> To contact Oceana environmental law expert, Eric Bilsky, call 202.467.1912 or e-mail him at ebilsky@oceana.org.

To arrange interviews with aviation, legal or scientific experts on this issue, please contact Dianne Saenz or Dustin Cranor. We can be reached at dsaenz@oceana.org or dcranor@oceana.org.

Oceana is an international ocean conservation group, which works to protect and restore ocean ecosystems from many threats, including climate change. For more information, go to www.oceana.org/climate.> Other environmental coalition partners are Earthjustice, Friends of the Earth and the Center for Biological Diversity.