EPA delays greenhouse gas curbs

By: Lisa Lerer
February 22, 2010 11:12 PM EST

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson reassured Democrats that the agency would take a cautious approach to regulating greenhouse gases, in a letter sent to coal state representatives on Monday.

An agency plan to regulate greenhouse gases from large, industrial sources has come under fierce criticism from Republicans, coal state Democrats, and industry groups.

Jackson's quick response is an attempt to keep Democrats from voting to veto the agency plan.

In her letter, Jackson said that no industrial facilities will be required to curb greenhouse gas emissions in this year. The agency would phase-in permit requirements starting in 2011. The smallest sources would not be subjected to permitting for emissions until 2016, she wrote.

But Jackson's statement didn't go far enough for some critics.

"While the delay in implementation is a small forced step in the right direction, the Clean Air Act continues to be the wrong tool for the job," Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski said. "And [the] EPA's timeline continues to create significant and ongoing uncertainty for a business community."

Murkowski and three Democratic co-sponsors hope to bring a resolution to the Senate floor in the next month that would veto the EPA rule altogether.

West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller is also currently drafting legislation that would suspend EPA action in order to give more time for Congress to act on a climate and energy bill.

"EPA actions in this area would have enormous implications and these issues need to be handled carefully and appropriately dealt with by the Congress, not in isolation by a federal environmental agency," he wrote in a recent letter to Jackson.

And last week, eight coal state Democrats signed a letter asking the agency to clarify its timetable and suspend regulations for industrial facilities until Congress can pass climate or energy legislation.

In December, the EPA officially declared greenhouse gases a danger to public health and welfare under the Clean Air Act. The decision, mandated by a 2007 Supreme Court ruling, forces to agency to begin regulating emissions across the economy.

The White House has repeatedly said that the administration would prefer to regulate the emissions through congressional legislation — but also notes that with no legislation in sight, the agency has no choice but to move forward with the new rules.

That decision has sent a broad group of actors across the political spectrum running to file petitions, lawsuits and legislation asking to suspend the regulations.

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, a Republican, lobbied his fellow governors to sign on to a letter to Congress asking lawmakers to pass a resolution stopping the agency from enacting "costly" regulations, at the National Governors meeting last weekend.

"While [the] EPA should offer input, complex energy and environmental policy initiatives, like greenhouse gas regulation, should be vetted and considered by Congress and States, not a single federal agency," wrote Barbour in a draft of his letter.


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