According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, carbon dioxide will soon be declared a dangerous pollutant, a move that the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said could help propel slow-moving climate change legislation on Capitol Hill.

EPA administrator Lisa Jackson (pictured) told reporters earlier this week that a formal "endangerment finding," which would trigger federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, probably would "happen in the next months,” the story reports.

Jackson announced her timeline, even as top senators said they were delaying plans to introduce legislation that would set new limits on carbon dioxide emissions. Senators had been scheduled to unveil legislation in early September, but the date has now been pushed back to later in the month, the Chronicle notes.

The EPA kick-started the regulatory process in April when it proposed declaring carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases as pollutants that jeopardize the public health and welfare. EPA scientists believe the greenhouse gases contribute to global warming by trapping heat in the earth's atmosphere. The EPA can formalize the finding anytime, now that it has closed a 60-day public comment period that netted more than 300,000 responses.

A formal endangerment finding would obligate the agency to regulate greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act, even if Congress doesn't pass a final climate change bill.

Read the full article at “EPA to declare CO2 a dangerous pollutant.”