Emissions Trading Scheme - USA

Climate Experts Challenge Anti-ETS ‘Myths’

AIN Air Transport Perspective » October 15, 2012

by Gregory Polek

Legislation passed by the U.S. Senate would prohibit the country’s airlines from participating in the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), raising suggestions that the American government might ultimately hold liability for payment of fines. (Photo: American Airlines)

 

October 15, 2012, 12:50 PM

U.S. airlines and their Congressional allies have based their opposition to the European Union’s emissions trading scheme largely on the bogus contention that it amounts to an infringement of national sovereignty, according to a policy brief commissioned by the German Marshall Fund of the United States and produced by Washington, D.C.-based consultancy Climate Advisors. The new report, published on October 11, argues that international aviation rules generally allow nations to regulate flights in and out of their territories, as long as they don’t discriminate against foreign carriers. The U.S., it says, routinely regulates foreign carriers, as do other countries outside the EU. For example, the U.S. mandates reinforced cockpit doors and limits on liquids and gels on all airplanes flying into and out of its territory. It also requires that security checkpoints at foreign airports hosting flights to the U.S. meet its own standards. Meanwhile, outside the realm of aviation, the U.S. routinely passes laws with extraterritorial implications, asserted one of the report’s authors, Samuel Grausz, in an interview with AIN.