The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee raised concerns today about the potential for hundreds of thousands of new U.S. EPA regulations to control greenhouse gas emissions and also predicted the agency's plans would lead Congress to act first on global warming.
Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) said EPA now has the legal authority under a year-old Supreme Court decision to issue rules that require states to outline in detail how their local industries should reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Dingell also said EPA could launch point-by-point New Source Review regulations forcing upgrades at almost every industrial source of heat-trapping emissions in the country.
"That's a glorious mess," Dingell told reporters following a speech at the Energy Information Administration's annual conference in Washington. "And the only way in which that can be properly addressed is by seeing to it that the Congress goes in and cuts down that thicket so we can achieve an intelligent national policy."
The Bush administration said last month that it plans to release an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking later this spring for greenhouse gases in response to the Supreme Court's 5-4 opinion in Massachusetts v. EPA.
And last week, several senior EPA officials signaled that they have already started looking into a raft of new climate requirements that could be woven into existing air pollution programs and rules, including regulations to address air toxics and visibility in national parks, NSR permits and potentially a National Ambient Air Quality Standard that would pinpoint the local concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (E&ENews PM, April 2).
Dingell called EPA's effort a "defensible action" because of the Supreme Court's decision. But he also cautioned that EPA will not finish the process before the end of President Bush's term.
"This problem falls into EPA's hands, it falls into the hands of Congress, and it falls very frankly into the hands of the president as to what it is he'll suggest what they should do," Dingell said. "That's this president and whatever president is his successor."
Looking ahead, Dingell repeated his pledge to try and move a global warming bill through Congress this year, explaining that committee staff members have started drafting legislation. "But drafts are drafts," Dingell added. "One of the things about drafts is they are always admittedly full of errors, ambiguities and questions that have to be resolved."
Dingell also said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has heeded his call to back off in pushing too soon on climate legislation given its multiple moving parts and overwhelming complexity.
"I think the speaker is coming to the same necessary conclusion I am and that is we can only move so fast," Dingell said. "You just can't move this legislation so doggone fast. ... We're trying to get the facts. And after we've gotten the facts, we'll try to get the politics of the thing. And then we'll try and figure out what it is that has to be done."
At a press conference last week, Pelosi stopped well short of making any specific commitments for a cap-and-trade bill. "We're working on this," she said. "I hope that we would be able to have something this year. I simply don't know if we'll be able to have a bill that measures up to the expectations of the Congress and the urgency of the issue" (E&ENews PM, April 1).
Also, Dingell acknowledged the diminishing likelihood that Congress would move legislation he proposed that would have tackled climate change through a new tax aimed at fossil fuels and large homes.
"I'm a realist," he said. "I recognize where the will and the wishes and concerns of the people are and a carbon tax does not seem to have achieved much in the way of support. I still happen to think it's the better way to go, but I don't seem to be joined by a significant number of people in that judgment."
Key Democratic and Republican staff members also spoke at the EIA conference on the prospects for climate and energy legislation.
Bob Simon, Democratic staff director for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, praised Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.) for writing the cap-and-trade bill poised for floor debate in June. The measure has become a primary target for critics.
"The first draft is always the hardest to write," he said.
Simon also expressed doubt President Bush would accept the Lieberman-Warner bill or an alternative. "Our chances of actually having a public law on climate change and global warming at the end of this Congress doesn't look that good," Simon said.
For now, Simon said Congress should work on a number of other issues that will be crucial as the United States upgrades its global warming policies, including giving EIA authority to collect information about natural gas reserves and development, as well as research and deployment of advanced energy technologies.
Simon's Republican counterpart, Frank Macchiarola, said he didn't question the scientific evidence linking human emissions to climate change. But he was far from convinced lawmakers have enough information to make major changes to U.S. energy policies.
"This should be the start of the debate on global climate change, not the end point," he said.
Turning to a new policy's potential costs, Macchiarola questioned whether Democratic leaders should be pressing for a major new global warming bill as the U.S. economy slides into recession.
"It is the wrong policy in strong economic times," he said. "It is especially wrong when you consider [Federal Reserve] Chairman [Ben] Bernanke's testimony to the Joint Economic Committee last week."
John Shanahan, a former Republican counsel to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, pointed to growing emissions and energy demands in China, India and other developing countries.
"They're the story," said Shanahan, now a senior vice president at a public relations firm. "We're now the backdrop."
Advertisement
