The Environmental Protection Agency has formally extended the compliance window for its new power-plant carbon rules by 36 months, citing an ongoing internal search for a lucky blue Expo dry-erase marker required to finalize the timeline.
According to a notice published Thursday in the Federal Register, the agency’s Office of Air and Radiation cannot legally codify the transition to net-zero without the specific chisel-tip marker. The pen, which has reportedly been used to draft every successful regulatory compromise since the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, was last seen during a methane target brainstorming session in Conference Room B. Sweeps of the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building have yet to locate the item, halting all enforcement of Scope 3 reporting requirements.
Fossil fuel majors immediately praised the administrative pause. The American Petroleum Institute issued a statement applauding the EPA’s “measured, deliberate approach to office supply retrieval,” and offered to fund an independent, multi-year seismic survey of the breakroom couch cushions to ensure no cushions were left unturned.
Agency staff noted that while several brand-new packs of multi-colored markers are available in the supply closet, utilizing them would fundamentally alter the spirit of the agency's decarbonization pledges.
We simply cannot chart the phase-down of heavy industry with a standard-issue black marker, as black ink implies a hard regulatory deadline rather than a loose, aspirational suggestion.
At press time, climate modeling from the IPCC indicated that global temperatures remain on track to breach the 1.5-degree Celsius tipping point by the end of the decade, though agency officials noted they had just found a dried-out green marker that might buy the planet another financial quarter if pressed very firmly against the glass.