Transcript:
More than 50 years ago, Republican President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act of 1970. It authorizes the federal government to regulate harmful air pollutants.
At that time, one of the pollutants was warm-weather carbon dioxide.
Naomi Oreskes, a professor of history of science at Harvard University, said that many people don’t know this history now.
Oregon: “There are debates in Congress and in court about whether the Clean Air Act applies to carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases.”
So her team reviewed government documents from the 1960s. She said they found more than 100 congressional hearings discussing carbon dioxide and man-caused climate change.
Oregon: “What we can prove is that … Congressmen who wrote and passed the Clean Air Act know very well that CO2 is, they know it’s a pollutant.”
That's why the words “weather” and “climate” are included in the legal text, she said.
Oregon: “So if someone tries to claim that Congress is absolutely unwilling to apply this regulation to CO2, it is wrong, and we have now proven that it is wrong.
She said it was important to know the intentions of the legislators at that time when determining how the law should be applied now.
Report Credit: Sarah Kennedy/Chavobart Digital Media
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