Photo: Gopal Chitrakar. A view of Mount Everest is seen during moon rise from Syangboche in Nepal December 3, 2009.

The Wall Street Journal published this on Saturday. If this happens this week, President Obama will have a better negotiating position when he attends the Copenhagen climate summit.  We don’t know yet if that’s good or bad, but it could at least help the EPA regulate greenhouse gas emissions if Congress fails in its obligation to do its job on the climate change and jobs front.

The article begins:

“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will early next week, possibly as soon as Monday, officially declare carbon dioxide a public danger, a trigger that could mean regulation for emitters across the economy, according to several people close to the matter.

Such an “endangerment” decision is necessary for the EPA to move ahead early next year with new emission standards for cars. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has said it could also mean large emitters such as power stations, cement kilns, crude-oil refineries and chemical plants would have to curb their greenhouse gas output.

The announcement would also give President Barack Obama and his climate envoy negotiating leverage at a global climate summit starting next week in Copenhagen, Denmark and increase pressure on Congress to pass a climate bill that would modify the price of polluting.

While environmentalists celebrate EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, it has caused many large emitters to cringe at the potential costs of compliance.”

Aww.  No, don’t feel sorry for them. They have been destroying our climate for decades.

“According to a preliminary endangerment finding published in April, EPA scientists fear that man-made carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are contributing to a warming of the global climate. Senior EPA officials said in November the agency would likely make a final decision in December around the time of the summit.

Joe Mendelson, Global Warming Policy Director for National Wildlife Federation, said the endangerment decision, would happen at “absolutely the right time.” . . . .

Good, they are timing it.

Read more here.