Jackson indicates resolve to move forward on carbon emission rules

President-elect Obama’s nominee to run the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, said Wednesday that she would work alongside Congress in developing a plan to regulate carbon dioxide emissions but that the process of combating global climate change could start at EPA.

The issue of EPA regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is a sensitive topic on Capitol Hill. Members of both parties have expressed nervousness at the prospect of being left out of a decision that will affect such a large swath of the economy, particularly during a downturn.

{mosads}The U.S. Supreme Court found in Massachusetts v. EPA that the agency did have the power, under the Clean Air Act, to regulate carbon dioxide if it so chooses. A decision that finds carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions to be a danger to the environment will “trigger the beginning of regulation in this country on CO2,” Jackson told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee at her confirmation hearing.

That effort will require “extraordinary communication” between the administration and Congress on how to proceed, Jackson said.

Jackson said her initial priorities would be determined largely by court cases, like Massachusetts v. EPA, that have directed EPA to act. Other court rulings require action to cut sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury emissions from power plants.

In preambles to questions, several Democrats noted what they said was low morale at the EPA due to a sense that politics sometimes trumped science in the formulation of policy during the Bush administration. Republicans refuted that charge.

But Jackson, who was the head of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection when Obama nominated her for the top job at EPA, said that she would work to develop rules that are “legal, sustainable and based on science.”

 “Part and parcel to restoring stature [to EPA] is to make sure the rules stand up,” Jackson said.

Democrats and Republicans on the panel were in agreement about Jackson’s prospects to take over at EPA. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) praised Jackson, but urged her to read an hourlong floor speech he had recently given questioning the widely accepted science behind global warming and then to discuss the issue with him further. Jackson pledged to do so.