By Ben Geman – 01/12/11

The Environmental Protection Agency is backing off application of greenhouse-gas permitting rules to power plants and other facilities that use biomass for energy.

The decision announced Wednesday to delay permitting for three years comes amid pressure from the forest industry and some Capitol Hill lawmakers who are fearful that applying emissions rules to biomass would stymie the market for the energy source.

EPA said it will use the time to gather more scientific analysis about how to account for biomass emissions and then craft a rule about how the emissions should be addressed when determining whether facilities need permits.

“We are working to find a way forward that is scientifically sound and manageable for both producers and consumers of biomass energy. In the coming years we will develop a commonsense approach that protects our environment and encourages the use of clean energy,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement. 

“Renewable, homegrown power sources are essential to our energy future, and an important step to cutting the pollution responsible for climate change,” she added.

Lawmakers, including Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), have pushed EPA to exclude biomass emissions from the permitting rules.

How to account for emissions from burning plant is a matter of debate, and EPA received scores of comments when it issued a call for information on the issue last year.

“EPA will . . . further consider the more than 7,000 comments it received from its July 2010 Call for Information, including comments noting that burning certain types of biomass may emit the same amount of CO2 emissions that would be emitted if they were not burned as fuel, while others may result in a net increase in CO2 emissions,” EPA said Wednesday in announcing the delay.

EPA’s action drew quick praise from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

“America’s forest owners, farmers and ranchers can play a crucial role in providing renewable energy from wood, switchgrass and other agricultural products. Homegrown energy can provide jobs in rural America while reducing greenhouse gases,” he said.

“EPA’s action today will provide the agency with the time it needs to ensure that greenhouse-gas policies properly account for the emissions and carbon sequestration associated with biomass. In many cases, energy produced from biomass will provide significant reductions of greenhouse gases relative to fossil fuels,” Vilsack added.

But Frank O’Donnell, head of the advocacy group Clean Air Watch, was less charitable.

To read more click here: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/137493-epa-delays-climate-rules-for-biomass-energy

At least 56 senators — just four short of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster — will most likely support measures to hamstring climate rules, and an additional eight votes may be in play this Congress, a POLITICO analysis shows.

Any congressional attempt to limit regulatory authority is always difficult to achieve, an industry lobbyist told POLITICO. But given the sluggish economy and the long list of moderate Senate Democrats up for reelection in 2012, “the chances are better than ever” for a vote to limit EPA’s authority.

EPA’s longtime supporters are preparing for the showdown.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) said EPA supporters are “not going to roll over and play dead. I plan to do everything in my power to … protect the Clean Air Act.”

A group of Senate Democrats intends to hold weekly meetings to discuss plans to fend off attacks on the EPA, said Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). The meetings will center on “protecting the public, to make sure that they don’t do anything to weaken the Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Water Act; to make sure that they don’t stop the states from their work in protecting the public from carbon and other pollutants.”

Many of the Democrats expected to attend those sessions held weekly meetings last year on efforts to pass the climate bill that collapsed in the Senate and is expected to remain on ice for at least the next two years.

Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and climate bill author John Kerry of Massachusetts are among the others expected to vocally oppose any efforts to quash EPA’s authority.

Lautenberg said last week that he’s confident that Democratic leaders will be able to muster the 41 votes needed to fend off bids to hamstring the agency.

But for Democrats on the fence, arguments from the Senate’s left flank may not be enough to persuade them to vote for rules the GOP has dubbed “job killing” regulations, amid a struggling economy.

“Most of the aggressive supporters of the agency in the U.S. Senate provide precious little comfort to moderates in either party,” the industry lobbyist said.

The outcome of a vote to limit EPA’s authority on climate ultimately may depend on how much political capital Democratic leadership and the White House are willing to invest.

Administration officials have said President Barack Obama would veto a bill to strip EPA of its ability to regulate greenhouse gases. But while the president would almost certainly veto a stand-alone measure to limit EPA rules, it could get more complicated if the measure is attached as a rider to a major spending package. That could also increase the likelihood of a deal for a one- or two-year wait.

read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47450.html

Dec. 23, 2010

The EPA’s mandate will be effective in January, 2011 and comes on the heels of its finding late last year on the dangers of greenhouse gases.

The move gives EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Oregon, and Wyoming, and it will disapprove part of Texas’ Clean Air Act permit program.

With today’s action, power plants and oil refineries will have to obtain federal permits that cap their greenhouse gas emissions.

Republicans charge these new greenhouse gas rules will stifle businesses and kill jobs.

The administration is trying to “regulate what they have been unable to legislate,” said Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, the Republican set to take over the House Energy and Commerce Committee in January. “This Christmas surprise is nothing short of a backdoor attempt to implement their failed job-killing cap-and-trade scheme.”

Democrats hailed the move as one that would promote a clean energy future for the United States.

“I applaud the EPA for taking this measured and reasonable step toward addressing the pollution that threatens the health and welfare of our families and children,” Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee said in a statement. These pollution control standards would apply to some of the largest emitters of dangerous pollution across the country, while also encouraging investment in the nation’s clean energy technologies.”

Today’s ruling promises to be the template for many future fights between Congress and the White House as the administration, having lost leverage to pass new laws, uses the EPA’s authority to write new rules.

Power plants and oil refineries are the country’s largest sources of carbon dioxide, responsible for about 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. But efforts to impose caps on their emissions have been met with great resistance from Republicans and even some Democrats, like incoming Sen. Joe Manchin of coal-producing West Virginia.

Environmental groups today hailed the EPA’s efforts as a critical step forward in what has been a tough political fight.

To read the entire article click here:http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/epa-regulate-greenhouse-gases-draws-republican-ire/story?id=12469305

Commerce Republicans announce subcommittee roles

By Sara Jerome – 12/16/10 03:24 PM ET

By Andrew Restuccia – 12/10/10 10:21 AM ET

The Environmental Protection Agency is pushing back against criticism from environmentalists that the agency bowed to pressure from Republicans and industry this week when it announced its intentions to delay the release of two key air rules.

The air rules have gained significant attention in recent days, with environmentalists raising red flags about the delays. The decision to delay the release of the final regulations is the latest example, environmentalists say, of the Obama administration being too willing to compromise with Republicans, who have mounted significant opposition to the rules.

But the EPA rejected those characterizations late Thursday night — EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan said environmentalists are reading too much into the delays. 

“These announcements have nothing to do with each other or with the other rules we’ve announced in the past, or will announce in the future, to protect Americans’ health,” Gilfillan said in an e-mail to The Hill. “No one should read anything more into this than the fact that we’re doing what we’ve said we’d do all along: following the best science and the law.”

The EPA on Tuesday filed a motion in federal district court to extend until April 2012 the deadline for releasing a final rule meant to reduce potentially harmful air emissions from industrial boilers. EPA officials have suggested that the initial draft boiler rule is too stringent. In making the announcement Tuesday, the agency said comments from industry on the rule “shed new light” on a number of issues. 

Then, on Wednesday, the EPA said it would delay releasing tougher smog rules until July 2011 in order to get more input from its scientific advisers.

Both proposals have come under attack from Republicans and industry groups, who argue that the rules are just the latest example of the EPA overreaching. But industry groups responded to this week’s delays with the sort of praise rarely given to the agency. The American Chemistry Council, for example, said it was “encouraged” by the EPA’s effort to delay release of the boiler rule. 

Republican lawmakers weighed in on the delay of the smog rule in a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson Thursday. Incoming House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), both vocal critics of the Obama EPA, praised the delay, but said they “remain gravely concerned with the direction the EPA is headed.”

Environmentalists and clean air advocates say they fear the delays are symbolic of a larger retreat by the Obama administration on environmental protections. 

“The fact that EPA coupled these two rules and significantly delayed them — both under sharp attack by Republicans including [Rep.] Fred Upton — suggests EPA wants to avoid a frontal clash with the new Congress,” Clean Air Watch President Frank O’Donnell, a prominent clean air advocate, said in an e-mail to The Hill.

Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, which represents air pollution control agencies around the country, expressed similar concerns. “It is regrettable that EPA has postponed two very important air pollution control regulations that have such huge public health impacts,” he said in an e-mail. “We hope these postponements are not the beginning of an unfortunate pattern of future EPA delays.”

http://thehill.com/

He doesn’t expect the policy to hinder his ability to find a compromise on spending measures with Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii). 

“I can’t imagine there will be a problem,” he said. 

House Republicans have tapped Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) to be chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, setting up an old bull appropriator with a history of earmarking to deliver on the anti-spending tea party platform that carried the GOP to victory this fall.

The House GOP Steering Committee selected him for the powerful position Tuesday. The entire Republican conference is expected to confirm his bid Wednesday.