Don't Let Congress Handcuff The EPA

Congress' plans to strip the EPA's authority to limit greenhouse gases will only mean more political gridlock on climate change issues.

The main selling point of Senator Jay Rockefeller’s legislation to impose a two-year timeout on EPA climate regulations is that Congress should decide how and by how much greenhouse gas emissions are limited.

Fair enough, but the chances of Congress taking up such legislation in the next two years are approximately equivalent to the odds of a snowstorm ruining fireworks shows in Phoenix next Fourth of July. At a November 17 hearing of the House Science and Technology Committee’s energy subcommittee to explore climate science, we got an early taste of how the climate issue is likely to play out in the 112th Congress – lawmakers will find new ways of talking past each other.

Take away EPA’s authority to limit greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and it will likely be gone for a long time. Utilities and other businesses clamoring for regulatory certainty will not get it and accordingly, will not invest in energy technologies that – regardless of how one feels about climate change – could seed new, export-oriented industries and slow the flow of U.S. dollars to Ahmadinejad, Chavez, and the rest of the OPEC gang.

In the meantime, warned Bob Inglis, outgoing ranking member of the subcommittee that held the climate science hearing, China will dine sumptuously on our lunch. Waiter, we will have the advanced nuclear deployment special, with a side order of photovoltaic factories and a double-tall order of carbon sequestration demo sites.

In pressing for the two-year timeout, Rockefeller has yet to disclose how he would like Congress to proceed during the hiatus and what actions, if any, he would support if Congress does nothing for two years.

Here’s another way to pose the question: Let’s assume that Rockefeller, Mitch McConnell, and other black diamond senators mean what they say about keeping “clean coal” in the energy game, for power generation and perhaps as an alternative source of transportation fuel.

If EPA limits are out of the picture, how do they propose to send a market signal justifying the higher capital costs of gasifying and liquefying coal, stripping away the pollutants that trigger heart attacks in adults and addle the developing brains of unborn children, and/or burying coal-brewed CO2?

We’re still waiting to hear answers to those questions.