WASHINGTON — Despite recent reports that leading climate change researchers are exaggerating claims of global warming, the U.S. Environmental Agency will declare carbon dioxide a dangerous "pollutant."

After billions of years on the planet, CO2 will formerly be recognized as an "endangerment" by the EPA, perhaps as early as today.

According to the Wall Street Journal, EPA officials may have timed the announcement to coincide with the two-week long summit on global climate change in Copenhagen.

The classification could pave the way for the Obama administration to forge ahead with schemes like carbon taxes and cap and trade.

Many businesses, including the American Trucking Associations, oppose such measures, arguing that the costs to industry would delay any hope of economic recovery.

An EPA endangerment finding "could result in a top-down command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project," U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue said in a statement. "The devil will be in the details, and we look forward to working with the government to ensure we don’t stifle our economic recovery," he said, noting that the group supports federal legislation.

According to the WSJ, Congressional Republicans have called on the EPA to withdraw the motion, arguing that allegedly unscrupulous actions by scientists at the Climatic Research Unit in the UK call into question the scientific rationale for CO2-based regulations.