Politics
New EPA Greenhouse-Gas Rules to Face Stiff GOP Opposition
Loading ...All in all, 2010 was a year to forget for environmentalists — carbon cap-and-trade legislation died, international climate talks sputtered and even the clean-tech market took a hit — and 2011 isn’t looking much better.
The incoming class of Republicans taking over the House in January features no shortage of members who deny the connection between man-made greenhouse-gas emissions and a warming planet — let alone think it’s worth trying to lower those emissions.
Ralph Hall, the new head of the House Science Committee, has said he’s not sure whether global warming or what he calls “global freezing” are bigger problems, and he’s planning to subpoena climate scientists over the so-called Climategate dispute. (Climategate involved hacked e-mails from scientists, which some skeptics argue erode the scientific argument for man-made global warming; independent investigations into the e-mails, however, have shown no evidence of scientific fraud.)
In Congress, at least, environmentalists will be spending all of 2011 on defense — even as global carbon emissions are expected to grow quickly again in the wake of the recession.
But the Obama Administration has a Plan B — and its already putting it into place. On Jan. 2, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enacted what are the first regulations of major stationary sources of greenhouse gases. (While auto fuel-efficiency standards of the sort strengthened by President Barack Obama in 2009 essentially regulate mobile sources of greenhouse gases, the EPA has never tried to regulate major stationary sources such as power plants, refineries and factories.)
The new rules will be modest at first, affecting only new plants or existing facilities that are undergoing major upgrades — perhaps 400 facilities will be affected initially. But eventually the EPA will be issuing regulations for nearly all sources of greenhouse gases — providing the only federal action to control U.S. carbon emissions. “We are following through on our commitment to proceed in a measured and careful way to reduce GHG pollution that threatens the health and welfare of Americans, and contributes to climate change,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement late last month.
Continue Reading at TIME.
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