The Senate is far behind on controversial climate-change legislation, and may carry it over until 2010. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) acknowledged the climate bill introduced last week by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) could wait until 2010 and said that senators will "push climate as hard and as fast as we can." However, some observers think supporters of the controversial legislation would be less able to pass the bill in 2010 because it is an election year.
With the likely delay, attention is turning to the steps the Environmental Protection Agency might take to regulate greenhouse gases in the absence of a new law.
In April, EPA followed through with the Supreme Court's 2007 directive to determine whether carbon dioxide is a threat to human health and welfare. The agency's finding that it is a threat is expected to be finalized this fall. EPA would then be required to begin the process of regulating emissions from several sources.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), author of the Senate's climate-change bill, said that if Congress fails to act, "we will be watching EPA do our job, because they must under the Clean Air Act."
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said that she and the rest of the Obama administration would prefer not to regulate, as the Clean Air Act was not designed to regulate carbon dioxide and a Congress-passed cap-and-trade bill would better address both environmental and economic concerns. White House officials and climate-change bill proponents have used the threat of EPA regulation to push Congress toward action.
But EPA's regulatory process is slow and by design, deliberate, with each regulation taking months to put in place. Each new regulation requires an advance notice of the rule, a comment period of up to 90 days, review of those comments, and then a final announcement of the new rule. And after each new rule is finalized, a process that typically takes months, it would likely be held up in years of litigation. And even if a regulation survives that process, it can be reversed by a future administration. Regarding the Clean Air Act, the technologies necessary to meet the obligations of the law do not yet exist for carbon dioxide. This is why environmental advocates prefer the legislative route, as it allows for more clear emissions reductions goals, can include additional policy measures with the cap, like a renewable electricity standard, and is often faster. But it is also why some opponents of climate-change legislation prefer the EPA route over House-passed legislation – climate-change opponents say that waiting on EPA rules and regulations would give them more time –– likely years –– to seek a better, alternative approach.
