Obama Shields for EU Emissions Rule

US President Barack Obama signed into law last week a bill that would give the US Transportation Secretary the authority to shield US airlines from the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS), should the secretary find that it is in the public interest to do so. The news comes just weeks after the European Commission decided to temporarily suspend the aviation component of its ETS for non-EU flights landing in or departing from the 27-country bloc.

The EU had originally decided to include airline emissions from intra-EU flights, as well as non-EU flights landing or taking off from the 27-member bloc, into its ETS in order to spur action in an area that has seen notoriously little progress in emissions reductions over many years.