Can the Senate stop EPA from regulating GHGs?
December 30, 2009 by Tom GuayPosted in: Special Report
The first attempt to stop EPA from regulating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions gets underway when the Senate returns from its Christmas and New Year’s vacation.
To stop EPA, Alaskan Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) is pushing a Senate resolution to stop EPA from implementing its endangerment finding that declared carbon dioxide (CO2) is a dangerous pollutant that needs to be regulated.
She says the real danger is that EPA action will “endanger jobs … and economic growth, and it endangers American competitiveness.” A vote on stopping EPA is expected by Jan. 20 as part of a larger debate over expanding the U.S. debt.
She’s upset that the Obama administration is letting EPA regulate GHGs as a ploy to force the Senate to adopt cap-and-trade legislation. Murkowski opposes cap-and-trade legislation.
Meanwhile, Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are drafting a climate change bill designed to convince pro-energy Senators to support a GHG cap-and-trade program. In exchange for limiting GHG releases, Kerry and Graham are talking about also expanding:
- offshore oil-and-gas drilling
- federal financing for nuclear power, and
- funding for various clean coal projects.
If Murkowski’s stop-EPA bid fails and the Kerry/Graham compromise bill stalls out, then industry faces GHG regulations from EPA in 2010.
Starting in January, facilities releasing more than 25,000 tons of GHGs a year have to track and monitor these releases. These facilities — more than 13,000 of them — must then file annual GHG emission reports. The first report, for 2010 releases, is due in 2011.
This spring, EPA will issue its first Clean Air Act rules to force large facilities to reduce GHG emissions when they renew or apply for emission permits.
Tags: cap-and-trade, endangerment finding, Graham, Kerry, Murkowski, nuclear power
GreenandMore.com
Loading ...
December 31st, 2009 at 3:43 pm
You folks on the east coast feelin’ all that global warming this year? Bet you haven’t had to run your heat more than a few times this year.
How about you folks in Texas, how long has it been since you have seen snow around Christmas?
Yes some of the ice sheets are shrinking, but unreported by most in the media is the fact that many other ice sheets are growing. Also the out of control temperature rise that is sure to doom us has mysteriously been stuck in reverse for more than ten years now with no reasonable explanations… Funny how so many reputable scientists are saying publicly that this is all a cycle for which we have very little control of, and that this cycle has repeated itself several times through the earths history, at some times even at more dramatic rates than we are seeing now, but our media and politicians ignore them. It’s as if the media (liberal people who like to be seen by other hugging trees) and politicians (ego driven people that enjoy power and saving people from themselves) may have an agenda of their own beyond anything science has to offer.
When climate gate reveled research fraud several weeks ago in Britain and then its second edition a few weeks later in Russia, you think we all would have had enough common sense to step back and look this whole thing over again. Instead many in our political machine have decided that pushing this agenda is far more important than anything a real scientist could ever come up with.
This Global Warming crud is nothing but a bunch of B.S.
December 31st, 2009 at 3:59 pm
How’s that Hope and Change working for everyone?
December 31st, 2009 at 4:57 pm
I certainly hope that the EPA will cause the Boston and New York Marathons from being run ,have all football games across the country cancelled , all cycling events halted and the Olympic tourch extinguished. Those thousands of athletes are emitting tons of CO2. Something MUST be done about them ruining the planet.
December 31st, 2009 at 6:05 pm
I am not in favor of horse trading for a bad policy like cap and trade. There is no proven reason to establish that legislation. Why is it that nothing has been introduced to limit the power of the EPA? There are pet billion dollar companies that benefit from our tax dollars with the cap and trade and this makes me really angry. At every turn the government holds the American citizen hostage to burdening regulations and taxes without any compassion or assuming any responsiblity for what they are doing. I feel we are being raped and then told to smile and enjoy the misery! Just once I would like the responsible sentators to find a way to enlighten the citizens so they can have the opportunity to stop this nonsense before it become law and then have the nerve to defend after the fact!!
January 2nd, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Truly sad, we have brains so that we can think for ourselves. But for some, it’s just too easy to let others do the thinking for us. Picking and choosing which “science” you choose to follow is entirely up to you. And unfortunately, many today choose to follow the “science” that fits their own agendas…on both sides of the political spectrum.
What’s been lost in the battle of the politicos is that there are valid scientific findings that climate change exists which are being ignored. And as long as the god of the almighty dollar is the altar at which we worship, true science will never be used as the benchmark upon which we base legislation.
My challenge to corporate America? Use your brains to engineer products that reduce our impact on the environment instead of the money in your wallets to silence those who believe this planet is a gift which we are required to protect. Maybe then you’ll gain some credibility in the argument.
January 4th, 2010 at 9:17 am
The global warming scam is dead and if the EPA wants to overstep their authority in this matter Congress is within their rights to defund and disband them. The American public is not for the cap in trade robbery!
January 4th, 2010 at 10:12 am
If you took a survey, you’d find the American public isn’t for paying taxes or having to work for a living, either. But we have to have those things to make the world continue to function. Global warming is a debate – it isn’t closed. But I resent each of you who think that because it isn’t settled, you should go on polluting my air and endangering my children. How dare you. I don’t need a car, a television, or a cell phone in order to be happy but because you do, you believe it’s okay to wreck the environment we both share? The EPA is putting its foot down and doing its job. CO2 emissions are like secondhand cigarette smoke, and people lobbying against cap-and-trade are like the tobacco companies crying foul. Consideration has to be given for the needs and rights of others, not just your wants.
January 4th, 2010 at 10:49 am
In all fairness to both sides of this political “hot potato” (or is that “potatoe”), there is no unquestionable scientific proof that global warming is valid. however, a logical person would also believe that like anything else of actual or guessed measure, the earth can only take a certain amount of “abuse” before it reacts.
With that said, it has always been my contention that the expansion of other energy producing systems, INCLUDING NUCLEAR must be acted upon with every bit of brain power and economic strength available to the U.S. Obviously, this philosophy doesn’t limit energy production from alternative sources to only “green” methods. Secondly, electric cars or those that run on hydrogen are very worthy of our tech and economic expenditures, but we also need to develop better carburation for those who need to continue (by necessity or choice) with the use of gas run vehicles, particularly trucking and local delivery.
Finally, for those who are believe or suspect that we are creating “greenhouse gases”, (which I consider somewhere between quasi-valid and imaginary), I might suggest that the government implement tax breaks to reward compliance and do so for a period of ten years before handing this kind of regulation over to the EPA who would levy for the purposes of funding itself first, and place cleaning up the environment a distant second on its priority list. All of this is intended for the purpose of creating proactivity instead of the nut case “reactivity” now spewed from Washington.
The problem with the “Change” we hear about repeatedly is that it’s always “Now” and far too left to demonstrate the reality that “compromise” free of any political favors must be part of good government. It’s been “Do It Now”, “Do It Fast” and do it without determining in advance whether it really has value socially, economically and morally.
January 4th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
N Allen, The fastest way to reduce Co2 is not by throwing wrenches into the gearbox of the American economy, but rather by stopping unnecessary deforestation and by planting trees in your neighborhood. People are responsible for about 1 percent of the Co2 produced in the last 100 years. Also it wouldn’t hurt if we stopped forcing all or the farming industry out of our neighborhoods and into third world countries. You have any idea how much pollution is created because people don’t want to live next door to a farm? The trucks here at my work get between 4 – 6 MPG hauling Rocky Mountain doubles.
January 4th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
… also, If the government thinks Co2 is so bad, why does the government require us to vent the partially used bottles into the atmosphere before they can be transported to be refilled?
January 4th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Dear N Allen,
Just a note to reassure you that if the EPA does not get the power to regulate CO2, conservation laws which are already in effect ,and have made great progress in cleaning our air and water, will not cease to exist.
Further more CO2 is nothing like second hand smoke. And if you think about it you will realize that your children are exhaling CO2 with every breath. Shall I complain that your choice to have children diminishes my right to have less CO2 in the atmosphere? You are correct , that would be a silly argument.
We who oppose Cap and trade legislation are not in favor of pollution but, are against arbitrary and draconian government mandate.
January 4th, 2010 at 5:47 pm
The battle is no longer democrat vs republican, but the people vs government elitists. The elitist goal is the wholesale destruction of our economy by any means necessary. The global warming scam is the means by which this travesty of justice is being sold to the ignorant public. The EPA is out of control and absurd. Plants breathe CO2, it is NOT a pollutant! CO2 is a vital gas for our atmosphere without which all life would extinguish! The more CO2 we have the better plants will grow. If Cap and Trade or something like it passes, be prepared for a precipitous drop in your lifestyle as we are taxed literally to death to fund this absurdity! It is time for all good men to act in defense of liberty and property, not with guns but by voting out any and all incumbents. And to keep voting them out until government is again small and benign.
January 21st, 2010 at 6:01 am
[...] this doesn’t mean there won’t be GHG regulations. Now, Obama will rely on EPA to do the dirty work of regulating, industry-by-industry, using the Clean Air Act. But they’re overlooking what EPA can and will [...]