Federal regulation of CO2 as a "hazardous substance," whether under Superfund or some other law, may bring a host of other problems. Once a substance is labeled or regulated by one federal program, it automatically or inadvertently can become eligible for additional regulation under other government programs without further affirmative government action.

As an example, the 1986 explosion at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, prompted Congress to pass, and President Reagan to sign, the Emergency Planning and Community-Right-to-Know Act, establishing a program known as the Toxic Release Inventory, or TRI.

Under the TRI, makers, transporters and users of certain hazardous chemicals are responsible for reporting what chemicals they store at their facilities so local communities may be prepared in the event of disaster.

The list of chemicals initially subject to TRI reporting was literally just thrown together from other lists of industrial chemicals already regulated in some way, shape or form. All of the listed chemicals were wrongly assumed to be Bhopal-dangerous.

Phosphoric acid, for example, which is used in colas and baked goods, was caught in the TRI snare and added to the list of "toxic" chemicals subject to reporting. Even though phosphoric acid is classified as "generally recognized as safe" by the Food and Drug Administration and there was no evidence that phosphoric acid had ever harmed anyone or the environment, it took a decade and a court order for phosphoric acid users to compel an ever-reluctant EPA to de-list the substance from the TRI.

You may then understand, perhaps, how the federal government’s designation of CO2 as a "hazardous substance" easily could turn into an unfortunate unintended consequence, say, for the soft drink industry, which puts CO2 in its products.

It’s enough to make you wonder why a company like PepsiCo belongs to the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, an industry/environmental activist coalition leading the charge on Capitol Hill to have CO2 branded as an environmental hazard.

Just don’t hold your breath to see how all this turns out — you just might become a Superfund site yourself.  Source

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