The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced to regulate greenhouse gases from aircraft or from the aviation industry. Currently, there is no timeline set by the agency for when the rule will be released, but it anticipates a proposed endangerment finding by late April 2015. A positive endangerment finding would mean the EPA would declare greenhouse gas emissions "endanger public health or welfare".

The center and a number of other environmental activist groups brought a suit against the EPA earlier in the year in an effort to force the agency to take action on aircraft emission regulation.

The EPA previously followed the prescribed regulatory process for motor vehicles after finding their greenhouse gas emission posed a danger, and later followed the same path to regulate emission from stationary power plants.
Airlines also represent another source of carbon dioxide emissions and factor in the president's crusade against global warming.

According Vera Pardee, a lawyer with environmental advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity, the positive endangerment finding will leave no choice for EPA apart from regulating aircraft emissions regardless of what the international community does.

The EPA's move toward regulating aircraft emissions could encourage nations to take up an international framework for aviation emissions when a new global climate treaty is negotiated in Paris in 2015.

She said, "There is no choice for the EPA but to craft and adopt emissions standards for aircraft," she says and once the U.S. acts, the world will have to follow".

According to the critics, the EPA's plan, which is meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, could involve the closing of coal-burning power plants nationwide. It will put the power plant jobs at risk. Also, jobs in utilities and railroad and other transportation industries will be affected.