Senate turns back plan to block EPA rules

The Senate on Thursday turned back a largely Republican plan to
block Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) greenhouse gas rules,
voting 47-53 to stave off what would have been a major blow to the
White House and the Democratic climate agenda.

Fifty-one votes would have been needed in favor of the plan to advance it toward a final vote.

{mosads}Six Democrats voted with Republicans for Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s
(R-Alaska) unsuccessful plan: Evan Bayh (Ind.), Mary Landrieu (La.),
Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Mark Pryor (Ark.), Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Jay
Rockefeller (W.Va.). No Republicans opposed it.

The vote is a victory for the White House — which threatened a veto
— and environmental groups that lobbied against Murkowski’s resolution.

The plan would have overturned the EPA’s “endangerment finding” last
year that greenhouse gases threaten humans. The finding is the legal
underpinning of EPA rules to begin limiting emissions from vehicles,
power plants, refineries and other sources.

The White House and many climate advocates say that passing a climate change bill would be preferable to EPA rules.

But the specter of regulation keeps pressure on Congress to act, and
advocates also say EPA action is needed if Congress remains at an
impasse on a climate bill.

Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National
Mining Association and the National Petrochemical and Refiners
Association had lobbied in favor of Murkowski’s plan.

The oil industry’s biggest trade group, the American Petroleum
Institute, said it was “disappointed” by the Senate vote. “The Clean
Air Act was never intended, nor should it be used, to address climate
change. It was designed to control traditional air pollutants, not
greenhouse gas emissions that come from every vehicle, home, factory
and farm in America,” the group said in a statement.

On the other side, a slew of environmental and liberal groups were
against it, as were the National Farmers Union and the Alliance of
Automobile Manufacturers, among others.

Environmental groups cheered the Senate vote. “Today a majority of
the Senate decided to move forward in the fight to reduce the carbon
pollution that threatens our communities and wild places. We simply can
no longer live with the free dumping of harmful pollution into the
atmosphere,” said Wilderness Society President William Meadows in a
prepared statement.

Murkowski and other backers of the plan argued that EPA rules will
eventually impose costly emissions requirements on a massive swath of
the economy.

While EPA has issued rules to limit Clean Air Act permitting
mandates to large emitters like coal-fired power plants, Murkowski said
on the Senate floor that the courts would strike down EPA’s effort to
shield small businesses.

That means EPA rules would reach residential buildings, schools,
hospitals and scores of other sources, she said. Murkowski said the EPA
rules are “something that is going to impact every aspect, 100 percent,
of our economy.”

“We need to be growing our economy, not paralyzing it,” she said.
“The time has come to take the worst option for regulating greenhouse
gases off the table once and for all.”

But Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) bashed Murkowski’s measure during
the debate, echoing Obama administration and environmental group claims
that it’s a gift to the oil industry made even more misguided by the
Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

She called it “ironic” that the measure was surfacing “at the same
time that every American sees graphic evidence on television every
single day of the deadly carbon pollution in the Gulf.”

“Big Oil backs the Murkowski resolution. So whose side are we on?”
said Boxer as she displayed photos of oiled birds in the Gulf. Boxer
chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee.

“Why should we let BP and their lobbyists take the driver’s seat?” said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Boxer also said Congress should not be in the business of
overturning a scientific finding. “Imagine 100 senators — not
scientists, not health experts — deciding what pollutant is dangerous
and what pollutant is not. Personally, I believe it is ridiculous for
politicians … to make this scientific decision,” she said.

However, while proponents of mandatory curbs on greenhouse gas
emissions generally opposed the measure, the political positioning has
other layers.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who has co-sponsored a climate change
bill with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) that caps emissions, also voted
for the Murkowski plan.

{mosads}“The agency’s early rules on this topic give me cause for concern,”
she said on the floor, claiming that EPA rules could affect Maine
businesses employing thousands of workers.

She said a “better way forward” is for Congress to pass a
comprehensive climate plan. “It is Congress’s job, not [that of] the
EPA, to decide how best to regulate greenhouse gas emissions,” she said.

The defeat of the Murkowski plan comes as Senate Democratic leaders
struggle with how to craft an energy package that Majority Leader Harry
Reid (D-Nev.) wants on the floor next month.

Shortly before the vote, Reid met in his office with the chairmen of
several committees that have jurisdiction over energy and climate
policy, and with other Democratic leaders. Rockefeller, the chairman of
the Senate Commerce Committee, said no firm decisions came out of the
meeting.

A key question is whether Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe
Lieberman (I-Conn.) can win traction for their sweeping climate change
bill that includes a modified version of cap-and-trade and new support
for building nuclear power plants and alternative energy.

Democratic leaders could also try and advance a narrower energy package that omits carbon caps.

Rockefeller — who has long been worried about how emissions limits
would affect his home-state coal industry — said some lawmakers
expressed concern at the meeting about the viability of the
Kerry-Lieberman plan.

“I think there is a dominant concern [which is] ‘What’s the point of
doing anything without 60 votes?’” he told reporters after the vote on
the Murkowski plan. “And I think that there’s some feeling that you
don’t spend time on the floor trying to figure out if you have got 60
votes. You have to understand before you go to the floor that you have
got 60 votes.”

Asked if he thought Kerry’s plan could get 60 votes, Rockefeller replied: “I don’t think so. But I think John [Kerry] does.”

This story was originally posted at 4:23 p.m., and updated at 5 p.m and 7:36 p.m.