In other words, instead of regulating the sediment directly, EPA decided that water was a pollutant.
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The first question facing the justices is whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant at all.
Jackson laid the groundwork for administrative action when she declared carbon dioxide a pollutant in 2009.
Unlike SO2, CO2 wasn't a pollutant--at least not then--and the EPA had no authority to regulate it.
The EPA is under a court order that says greenhouse gases are a pollutant that fall under their jurisdiction.
Fuel duty has also served as a useful environmental weapon, since it accurately targets a pollutant and changes behaviour.
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Also in Virginia a federal judge ruled that the EPA did not have the authority to declare storm water a pollutant.
Jackson was the first federal official to declare carbon dioxide a pollutant.
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Two Surrey councils have said they will be working together to improve air quality as readings showed levels of a pollutant above government targets.
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However, on January 3, a federal court ruled that that the EPA could not treat storm water as a pollutant under the Clean Water Act.
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EPA, which ruled -- which ruling set in motion the scientific process to determine whether the public health was threatened by carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
Thus, it is not possible for a pollutant to affect only a portion of a lake, nor is it possible to treat only a portion of a lake.
"In this instance, the EPA is saying carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and even if it was, we don't know enough yet to deal with it, " Olson says.
Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, says carbon dioxide can't be regulated like a pollutant because it's not toxic to animals or people and it's tough to control.
Naoto Kan, secretary-general of the opposition Democratic Party, proposes several traditional environmental schemes, such as promoting windmills and tightening rules on dioxin, a pollutant produced by some industrial processes which can cause birth defects.
Bush has also been criticized for his support of logging in national forests, his opposition to the Kyoto treaty on global warming and his reversal of a campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
Since CO2 is not a pollutant but a substantial benefit to agriculture, and since its warming potential has been greatly exaggerated, it is time for the world to rethink its frenzied pursuit of decarbonization at any cost.
While the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere plays an important role in limiting harmful ultraviolet light reaching the Earth's surface, low-level ozone is a pollutant that is harmful, causing respiratory problems in animals as well as well-documented cases in humans.
Almost five months ago, his EPA issued its long-awaited regulations for greenhouse gas emissions, regulations that were required by law once the EPA deemed those gases a pollutant as defined by the Clean Air Act (a finding that was, in fact, made on December 15, 2009).
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The rider to deny the EPA funds to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant goes after a fairly recent policy that nevertheless has deep, strong bureaucratic roots, which again, is unlikely to be permanently altered by the expression of the will of one house of Congress on a short-term Continuing Appropriations bill.
"The more you look at ozone the more you understand that it is a global pollutant, " he said.
At ground level ozone is a dangerous pollutant, but at altitude it blocks the passage of harmful ultraviolet light.
Ozone in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) is regarded as a serious pollutant that can cause respiratory problems, and even damage masonry and agricultural crops.
This is especially true the cleaner a country gets: eliminating the last 5% of a given pollutant usually costs more at the margin than cutting the first 50%.
Although methane itself is not regulated as a water pollutant, the study could lead to federal regulation of the heretofore largely unregulated practice of the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, of deep layers of shale to tap vast reservoirs of natural gas in the United States.
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"Carbon tet", as it is known, is a highly toxic pollutant which is known to cause cancer and liver damage.
Yet, results from the Yale-George Mason report found that 76% of Americans support regulating carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas pollutant, and that two-thirds believe the U.S. should pursue policies to reduce its carbon footprint.
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Another issue is that a second type of pollutant, aerosols such as the minute sulphate particles that form when sulphurous fuel is burned, promote the formation of clouds.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs decided that the link between air-borne dioxin (an ingredient in Agent Orange, and also a common air-borne pollutant emitted by waste incineration, some chemical manufacturing processes, cars and trucks, and other industrial sources that burn fuel) and diabetes was so strong, it compensated 270, 000 veterans for diabetes linked to dioxin exposure.
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