News | Climate Change

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A top U.S. environmental official says Washington should not wait for major pollutant countries, including India and China to act on climate-change, but should proceed with its environmental-protection measures by way of legislation, besides conducting research and organizing development.

In a wide-ranging discussion Monday on environmental protections at the Press Club in Washington, Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), addressed the issue of climate-change and how environmental protections could help, rather than hurt, the economy.

Informing the audience that the choice between the environment and the economy was incorrect, she said : "When the air is dirty or the water is contaminated and people are getting sick, those kinds of health costs are multiplied by millions of families. And they're a burden to small businesses trying to provide health care to their workers."

Jackson said her agency would move forward to curb greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, while Congress continued to debate legislation to address climate-change.

She decried those Republican Party lawmakers who were opposing the climate-change legislation and asking the Obama Administration not to take any further step on the issue unless India and China took concrete steps in this direction.

Republicans, including Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) say that the United States would be at an "economic disadvantage" if it decided to curb emissions without similar moves by major emitters, including China and India.

Dismissing Sensenbrenner's argument, Jackson said the United States had much to gain from new technologies that would stem from a new green economy: "There's no reason to wait for China and India to act."