The federal government soon may declare your very breath to be toxic regardless of its minty freshness.

Consistent with last spring’s Supreme Court ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency may regulate carbon dioxide as a hazardous air pollutant, the agency is evaluating how CO2 could be regulated as a hazardous substance under its notorious Superfund program, according to Carbon Control News from March 4.

So at the risk of exhaling and being held retroactively liable (more on that later), let’s take a deep breath and consider the potential impact of likening CO2 to the substances of concern at Love Canal, Times Beach and the thousands of other former and current Superfund waste sites and dumps across the nation.

The Superfund law was enacted by a lame-duck Democrat Congress and signed into law by a lame-duck President Carter in December 1980. The impetus for the law was the fiasco at Love Canal, N.Y., which was caused by local officials who recklessly built a school on top of a known chemical dump.