The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is standing by its claim that greenhouse gases threaten the public health and welfare of the American people and that emissions from on-road vehicles contribute to that threat.
The agency rejected 10 petitions last week, which challenged its endangerment finding and asked EPA to reconsider.

The petitions claim that climate science cannot be trusted and assert a conspiracy that invalidates the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program. EPA spent months considering the petitions, but found no evidence to support them.

"The endangerment finding is based on years of science from the U.S. and around the world," said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. "These petitions -- based as they are on selectively edited, out-of-context data and a manufactured controversy -- provide no evidence to undermine our determination.

"Defenders of the status quo will try to slow our efforts to get America running on clean energy," she said. "A better solution would be to join the vast majority of the American people who want to see more green jobs, more clean energy innovation and an end to the oil addiction that pollutes our planet and jeopardizes our national security."

Opponents have filed suit in federal appeals court to overturn the EPA's finding, according to reports by POLITICO. Arguments will likely not be heard until next spring, followed by a final decision by summer 2011, the publication reports.

For more information on the petitions, click here.

To read Executive Editor Steve Sturgess' opinion on climate change, click here.