The EPA should regulate airplanes

While researching a PolitiFact fact check, it occurred to me that the Environmental Protection Agency ought to regulate airplanes.  Not the emissions from airplane engines, but the airplanes themselves.

This notion stems from the definition of air pollution that EPA and the courts have used to justify shoehorning carbon dioxide into the regulated pollutant category (bold emphasis added):

While greenhouse gases and their impacts have been a matter of concern for years, these gases were not definitively determined to be an air pollutant covered by the CAA until the Supreme Court resolved that issue affirmatively in 2007. In addressing this issue, the Court looked to the definition of “air pollutant,” which is defined as “any air pollution agent or combination of such agents ... which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air.” Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497, 506 (2007) (“Massachusetts”).

Airplanes enter the ambient air with every takeoff, unless we're supposing the mere manufacture of a plane causes it to enter the air (albeit grounded).  It seems like the statutory text would foreclose any exclusion of airplanes from the EPA's regulatory sphere.  Certainly planes regularly cause human endangerment via crashes and skydiving accidents (not to mention the heightened risks to human life associated with warplanes!), so it makes complete sense for the EPA to require permits of plane owners.

Just sayin'.