EPA to announce greenhouse gas ruling

In what could prove a major break through for the Copenhagen negotiations, the White House is reportedly poised to confirm that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can move to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

According to Reuters reports, the EPA will host a press conference within the next hour at which it will issue a so-called "endangerment ruling" - a controversial ruling that recognises greenhouse gas emissions as a danger to public health that can be regulated through the existing Clean Air Act.

An unnamed White House official told the news agency that the administration had given its blessing to the ruling.

The move has potentially enormous repercussions for both US efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions and the wide Copenhagen talks that started today.

It would effectively allow the Obama Administration to impose wide-ranging carbon legislation even if the proposals for a Climate Change Bill currently working their way through the Senate are rejected by Congress.

As a result the US negotiating team will be able to reassure other nations at the talks that the US can make good on President Obama's pledge to cut emissions by 17 per cent on 2005 levels by 2020, even if Republican Senators refuse to compromise on the proposed climate change bill.