NRECA is urging Senators and Representatives to develop a responsible plan for reducing the greenhouse gases blamed for climate change in order to avoid the quagmire that could result from using the Clean Air Act for this purpose.
The EPA has finalized an endangerment finding, opening the door to using the CAA to regulate greenhouse gases from motor vehicles and plans to issue a final motor vehicle rule in March. NRECA believes that such a rule would catch stationary sources in its net, subjecting a broad – and unpredictable -- range of small and large emitters to the new GHG requirements.
As NRECA has said in comments to the EPA, the CAA is designed to control air pollution that is a local and regional scale problem while GHG emissions have global scale consequences and are emitted from sources around the world. Regulation of GHGs using the CAA is fundamentally unworkable.
As EPA moves forward, NRECA and electric cooperatives across the country are raising concerns that EPA regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act (CAA) could result in a “glorious mess,” in the words of Rep. John Dingell (D-MI). Co-ops are urging Congress to find a responsible solution to the challenge of reducing carbon emissions.
Legislative Proposals
Several Members of the House and Senate have introduced, or are developing, proposals to limit the use of the Clean Air Act to regulate CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions.
- Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) has introduced legislation (H.R. 4396) that would remove six greenhouse gases from the definition of the word “pollutant” in the Clean Air Act, thereby leaving it to Congress to establish new law governing greenhouse gas emissions.
- Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) have introduced legislation (S.J.Res. 26) that would “disapprove” of the endangerment finding EPA concluded in December 2009, thereby closing the door to CAA regulation of greenhouse gases.
- Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), along with co-sponsors Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.), have introduced legislation that would repeal EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the Clean Air Act (CAA).
- Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has introduced legislation (S. 3072) that would prohibit EPA from regulating stationary sources of greenhouse gases for two years. Rockefeller’s effort is targeted at preventing CAA regulation of stationary sources, specifically, but would allow regulation of mobile sources to move forward.
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