The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruled on Monday that  greenhouse gases are harming human health, a move the means the agency can regulate pollution emitters without having to get Congressional approval.

The “endangerment finding”  is necessary to move ahead on new emissions standards for cars due out in March 2010,  EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said.

“These long overdue findings cement 2009′s place in history as the year when the U.S. government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse gas pollution and seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform,” Jackson told the press.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the EPA had the right to regulate emissions of the gases under the Clean Air Act. This means that the EPA has access to regulate the limit of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted by polluting businesses such as power plants, oil refineries, chemical plants and metal smelters.

The controversial decision, proposed by the administration earlier this year, comes as a global climate summit opens in Copenhagen. It gives the Obama administration leverage in its negotiations and puts pressure on Congress to pass a bill that cuts greenhouse gases in a more economically efficient way.

Though the House has passed such a bill, the Senate has faced a number of political hurdles.

“These long overdue findings cement 2009′s place in history as the year when the US government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution and seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform,” Jackson said.

She responded to business fears that this could hurt jobs by saying that “there are ways to sensibly move forward on regulations” and adding that the EPA has insured that small and medium-sized businesses “will not be regulated.”