GOP's Climate Change Fight Heats Up

If House Republicans want to build on their 2010 gains, going on the warpath against environmental protections is a flawed strategy.

Since last year, Republicans have been railing against the Obama Administration’s determination that carbon dioxide emissions endanger human health and its subsequent decision to regulate those emissions under the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Air Act (CAA) authority.

The Administration is acting in response to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA that required the agency to act under the CAA unless “it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change or if it provides some reasonable explanation as to why it cannot or will not exercise its discretion.”

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), an infamous climate denier who happens to be the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told a House subcommittee on Wednesday that:

…the Supreme Court ruled that EPA possessed the discretion under the Clean Air Act to decide whether greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.  EPA was given a choice, and it made the wrong choice.

It probably then came as a surprise to Senator Inhofe and other Republicans who seek to tie EPA’s hands, such as House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton and Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, when a 2007 letter surfaced this week addressed to President Bush from his EPA Administrator Steven L. Johnson that proposed essentially the same regulatory approach being pursued by Obama’s EPA.

In that letter Johnson wrote the following:

…the Supreme Court's Massachusetts v EPA decision still requires a response. That case combined with the latest science of climate change requires the Agency to propose a positive endangerment finding, as was agreed to at the Cabinet-level meeting in November...the state of the latest climate change science does not permit a negative finding, nor does it permit a credible finding that we need to wait for more research.

It is worth underscoring that Johnson cites agreement on a “positive endangerment finding” at a Cabinet-level meeting.

Johnson went on to propose his “EPA Climate Change Plan” as follows:

•      In response to the Supreme Court mandate in Massachusetts v EPA, issue a proposed positive endangerment finding for public notice and comment as agreed to in the policy process.

•      In response to the direction in EISA (Energy Independence and Security Act), issue a proposed vehicles rule jointly with the Department of Transportation to implement the new EISA and address issues raised in the Supreme Court case.

•      To address requirements under the Clean Air Act, issue a proposed rule to update the New Source Review program to raise greenhouse gas thresholds to avoid covering small sources and to better define cost-effective, available technology.

While President Bush ultimately failed to act on Johnson’s recommendations, the law and hard science have combined to lead two EPA Administrators, Republican and Democrat, to the exact same conclusion regarding the agency’s obligations under the CAA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Unfortunately, this revelation is unlikely to cause those in the GOP ranks who are on an anti-regulatory binge to pause and reflect. Instead, we will continue to be fed daily doses of EPA bashing, such as Senator Barrasso’s recent description of EPA’s action as a “backdoor approach to regulate our climate by abusing existing laws.”

These crusaders probably do not want to be confused by the facts.

Still, if Republicans in Congress want to build on their 2010 gains, going on the warpath against environmental protections might be a flawed strategy.

Recent polling and focus group work indicates that roughly three-fourths of Americans – including 61 percent of Republicans view EPA’s emissions rules favorably and most want EPA to do even more to hold polluters accountable and protect air and water.

This public support is likely to get even stronger as the economy improves.

Successfully blocking EPA regulations is a longshot while Obama in the White House with veto pen in hand, so industry will undoubtedly rise to the occasion and adapt over the next two years. How will GOP lawmakers then look if their overwrought predictions of economic distress and job loss resulting from these regulations fail to materialize?

History is replete with examples of gloom and doom predictions about environmental standards that failed to materialize. For example, fuel economy standards were going to shut down the auto industry and curbing acid rain was going to wreak all sorts of havoc on the economy. Such predictions betray a lack of confidence in the ability of American industry to innovate.

Paul Allen, Senior Vice President for Corporate Affairs for the Baltimore-based utility Constellation Energy, recently spoke out in defense of EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and expressed confidence in the ability of electric utilities to adapt, saying:

Our view is that EPA is doing its best to follow the instructions, to play the game by the rules. We’re in an industry that is completely capable of responding to those rules.

The need to address climate change is only going to get clearer as time marches on, as is the realization that industry can adapt and thrive with new emission standards. Republicans need to be part of the solution. That cannot happen if they are busy pandering to the climate denier sect and siding with our worst corporate citizens—those who seek every advantage no matter what the cost to others.

Johnson wrote that his plan to address carbon emissions was “prudent and cautious yet forward thinking.”  That is exactly what the GOP needs to be. Otherwise it will find itself on the wrong side of history.

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