E2 Morning Round-up: While Senate spill bills await debate, fight over EPA regs continue, and initial Gulf spill estimates leap upward

The coal-state Democrat said the plan does not need to be taken up as a stand-alone bill “because I think the bill is pretty clear — what it is, what it represents — so I don’t think it’s a mystery.” He added, “So if it’s stand-alone or it’s attached to something that’s moving pretty well, that’s ok.” A series of fiscal year 2011 spending bills the Senate is expected to start taking up in September would be possible vehicles for his language, he said. 

But Rockefeller is likely to face competition within his own party in the Senate, not to mention a likely White House veto.

Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa) continue to chat about a possible alternative that would not go as far as Rockefeller’s in delaying regulations. Carper on Monday was mum on the possible details, saying it was still something being discussed by staff.

“I’m not sure what Senator Rockefeller is going to do, but if he’s intent on pressing for a vote, Bob Casey and I may have to finally have that conversation,” he told reporters Monday. “We’ve not talked about it, but our staffs have.”

Carper is also looking forward to consideration later this fall in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on a plan he and others such as Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) have championed to reduce nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury emissions from power plants.

Gulf spill estimate goes way up

“The blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico gushed 12 times faster than the government and BP estimated in the early weeks of the crisis and has spilled a whopping 4.9 million barrels, or 205.8 million gallons, according to a more detailed analysis announced late Monday,” the Washington Post reports.

“BP’s Macondo well spewed 62,000 barrels of oil a day initially, and as the reservoir gradually depleted itself, the flow eased to 53,000 barrels a day until the well was finally capped and sealed July 15, according to scientists in the Flow Rate Technical Group, supervised by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of Energy.”

Also on Capitol Hill today…

A Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee looks at the state of research on the potential environmental health factors with autism and other neurodevelopment disorders.

Those testifying at the 10 a.m. hearing include Paul Anastas, the head of EPA’s office of research and development, and Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences and National Toxicology Program.