BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 27, 2022
The Inflation Reduction Act has been touted as the largest investment in efforts to address climate change. Many, including us, have been doubtful that those investments – most of which are tax incentives – will be particularly effective. But, it turns out, there is language in the bill, which President Joe Biden signed into law earlier this month, that can make a big difference in America’s ongoing efforts to reduce emissions of pollutants that trap heat around the earth. A provision of the act explicitly gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate greenhouse gasses as pollutants. This is significant because the U.S. Supreme Court recently pared back the agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.