Greens launch new campaign to protect EPA climate regs

The ad will run for about a week and will be coupled with grassroots 
activity, including letters signed by small business and public health
 groups that would be sent to congressional leaders by early next week,
 spokesman David Di Martino said. The coalition is also circulating a petition it hopes will garner hundreds of thousands of signatures, he said.

The effort is the latest volley in what has become the top 
environmental fight Congress is likely to engage in before the end of
 the year.



A powerful lobby of two dozen industry trade associations — including
 the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute, the 
National Mining Association and the National Association of
 Manufacturers — sent joint letters Tuesday to House and Senate 
appropriators to argue that “the appropriations process can ensure
 that the potentially damaging impacts of EPA’s rules are postponed for 
a two or three year period pending Congressional action.”




The Senate Appropriations Committee had been expected on Thursday to 
markup an EPA spending bill likely to feature debate of a Republican amendment denying funds to EPA next year for regulating greenhouse gas restrictions for power plants and other large industrial sources.

That markup has since been postponed and no new date has been announced.



Democrats on the panel that would normally support efforts to delay
 EPA climate regulations are not expected to support an effort to do so 
in the spending debate, opting instead to take Senate Majority Leader
 Harry Reid (D-Nev.) at his word and debate a measure separately on the 
Senate floor.

Reid on Tuesday reiterated to reporters that he intends to fulfill his 
promise to Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and hold a vote during a
 post-election lame-duck session this year.