This is what the Chamber of Commerce is chanting lately. The National Association of Manufacturers is threatening to sue. Yet the Environmental Protection Agency has announced that if Congress won’t legislate to cut green-house gases, they will regulate. The EPA’s announcement is the ace Obama’s administration has been holding in its pocket, an ace that may trump the US’s attempts to control carbon emissions. A Supreme Court decision earlier this year has empowered the EPA to assert that CO2 is a pollutant, and as such must be regulated from vehicles. Now, the administration has authorized the agency to start regulating GHG’s from power stations and industry, the backbone of the US economy.  "We are not going to continue with business as usual," said Lisa Jackson, EPA’s chief, to the New York Times. “We have the tools and the technology to move forward today, and we are using them." The new…

Today, Ryder System, Inc. released its 2011 Corporate Sustainability report titled “Making Commerce Flow More Efficiently and Sustainably, for Everyone.”  Their third report since 2008 outlines steps and achievements taken by Ryder in the development and execution of their sustainability strategy.   Highlights from the report include figures developed using methodology from the Carbon Disclosure Project. The Carbon Disclosure Project is an independent not-for profit organization working to drive greenhouse gas emissions reductions.   Their reporting system is divided into three “Scopes.”   Scope 1 covers direct emissions for all operations owned and controlled by Ryder.  Scope 2 covers indirect emissions for purchased electricity, while Scope 3 covers indirect emissions associated with employee business travel.  Ryder reports 2011 enterprise emissions for the U.S. and Canada’s Scope 1 & 2 at 459,452 metric tons of CO2 equivalent,; down by 7,410 MT in 2010; and by 14,482 MT in 2009.  Much of these carbon reduction…