Rein in the EPA's Carbon Rules

The Environmental Protection Agency is claiming authority to regulate carbon emissions. If it is allowed to proceed, it will begin to impose regulations similar to those rejected last year by a Democratic-controlled Congress, which couldn't muster the votes to support a cap-and-trade carbon regulation plan. The Senate is poised to limit the EPA's authority to impose the costly regulations and should do so.

The EPA has made a finding that greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, pose a threat or potential threat to human health and can be regulated as pollutants. Carbon dioxide, of course, is a key element of the Earth's atmosphere. The EPA's finding is a drastic expansion of its power under the federal Clean Air Act.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, has introduced amendments to a federal small business act that would rein in the power the EPA has claimed for itself, preserving the power of Congress to impose such regulations rather than have them promulgated by executive branch fiat. A committee of the House has already adopted similar legislation.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, has a competing amendment that would postpone the regulations for two years, while Sen. Max Baucus, D-Montana, has offered an amendment that allows the EPA to move ahead with its carbon regulations, but carves out limits and exemptions for small business and agriculture.

All of the amendments could come up for a vote as early as today.

The Baucus Amendment is a device to give senators cover to delegate their authority to the EPA without having to accept the responsibility for the economic damage the EPA's regulations may well cause. The EPA announced in December that it would announce preliminary emissions standards for power plants this July and oil refineries in December.

It is estimated that electric utilities will have to install more scrubbers for their coal-fired plants and, The Wall Street Journal projects, ultimately will have to replace about a fifth of the nation's coal plants with natural gas burning operations, which will drive up both the cost of natural gas and electricity.

If this is to be part of the nation's energy policy, the costs and burdens on the economy should be determined by legislation, not by regulation.

The Senate ought to adopt the McConnell amendment. Congress should be accountable for the outlines of any carbon regulation regime.

Failing that, the Senate should adopt the Rockefeller amendment, which at least gives opponents time to pursue the court challenges and administrative responses to the EPA that are already under way, as well as allow Congress to review the regulations.

Adopting the Baucus amendment amounts to a punt on the issue — seeming to do something but in reality simply shrugging it off. More should be expected of U.S. senators than that.

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