Congress Left Out in the Cold in Global Warming Debate
EPA
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Danny Lauridsen
Boston University Washington News Service
4-26-07
WASHINGTON, April 26 –The global warming debate is heating up on Capitol Hill, but Congress isn’t the branch turning the knob.
On April 2, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Environmental Protection Agency violated the Clean Air Act by refusing to regulate motor vehicle carbon dioxide emissions. Scientists generally believe that man-made carbon dioxide emissions, from motor vehicles and other sources, are largely responsible for global climate change.
With a climate of increasing urgency nationwide, states like Massachusetts and California have taken the lead in reducing climate change-related emissions at a regional level, while the Supreme Court decision was a blow to the Bush administration’s stance that the EPA could not regulate carbon dioxide. But where punches have been thrown in the hottest political battle in the country, the legislative branch has found itself left out in the cold.
U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., recognized that he and fellow legislators have fallen behind state and regional efforts to curb carbon dioxide emissions, but he applauded recent Massachusetts efforts, such as the Supreme Court case in which the state served as the lead plaintiff and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a compact among northeastern states.
Both, said Sen. Kerry, have set precedents for the federal government to follow.
A study released in April by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group lists Massachusetts among the lowest carbon-emitting states, but state officials admit that the Bay State does not currently have an official system in place to track and measure carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles.
While Sen. Kerry is pushing his own climate change legislation through the Senate, he and many other Democrats fault the Bush administration for stalling on what they argue is an urgent crisis. But they express hope that the Supreme Court’s decision will send a clear message that climate change is a federal issue.
“It’s an historic moment when the Supreme Court has to step in to protect the environment from the Bush administration” Mr. Kerry said. “The White House now must go back and take a fresh look at regulating greenhouse gas emissions. The time to act is now.”
U.S. Rep. John W. Olver, D-Amherst, also cited the Bush administration as the key obstacle in enacting an effective climate change overhaul.
“We just happen to have an anti-scientist in the White House at this moment,” Mr. Olver said. “Any new administration will simply have to affirm that global warming and climate change are occurring.”
Sen. Kerry and Rep. Olver seem likely to be disappointed. Testifying before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on April 24, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson repeatedly declined to say when and how his agency would comply with the Supreme Court’s decision.
Mr. Olver, who has his own climate change bill pending in the House, said he thinks the climate change debate “absolutely” will pick up steam after the 2008 presidential election, but he said he would like to see much more done before President Bush leaves office.
Mr. Olver said that while the President would never sign a bill that would put strict restrictions on emissions levels, Mr. Bush might agree to a “cap-and-trade” program, which would allow companies with emissions levels below a fixed amount to “sell” their excess pollution allowances to companies with levels above the fixed amount, thus rewarding more environmentally friendly companies.
“He, while he is president, will not go beyond cap-and-trade, but might get pushed into cap-and-trade some time within the next 18 months,” Mr. Olver said.
And though he isn’t sure what kind of action the Supreme Court’s decision will push the president into taking, Mr. Olver said it will supply some added pressure – something Congress was unable to accomplish.
“EPA is not going to take initiative until the administration decides that they must do so because the political fallout from not doing so is too great,” he said.
But environmental groups in Massachusetts are worried that political pressure may come too late.
“Congress has really dropped the ball on this,” said Jack Clarke, director of public policy and government relations at Mass Audubon, the largest conservation organization in New England.
Mr. Clarke said that while separate regional efforts are being taken by groups of states across the country, the industries largely responsible for the increasing U.S. carbon dioxide emissions –the electric generating industry, whose plants generate the most carbon dioxide in the United States, and the automobile industry – will not make the necessary changes to reduce emissions until they have one federal standard to regulate carbon emissions in plants and motor vehicles instead of one for each state, and he sees the Supreme Court’s decision as the first step toward that end.
The decision “will force the automobile industry and the electric generating industry to put pressure on the Bush administration to put out uniform regulations regarding CO2 emissions and miles per gallon,” Mr. Clarke said.
Ken Green, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who is studying air pollution and climate change policy, said that while the automobile industry will not be happy about the decision, it’s still too early to see how it will be affected specifically.
“They’re already facing a huge amount of challenges,” Mr. Green said. “I can’t imagine they’re hungry for another one on their plate, but at this point we’re sort of in limbo waiting on EPA.”
Mr. Green will be holding a conference for lawyers and officials involved in the Massachusetts case in the coming weeks to discuss how broad the impacts of the case will be and “to give us the good, the bad and the ugly of the whole thing.” He said it was up to EPA to decide how it will regulate emissions, and until it acts, it remains unclear how the industry will be affected.
“We’re really in the early days of the ramifications of this decision,” he said. “The point of the suit was to force federal implementation by EPA, so it should have little effect on the states other than to move agencies that way.”
Uniform regulations also would be necessary in regulating pollution between regions. For instance, much of the pollution in the Northeast floats over from the industrial midwest, making it difficult for states in New England to regulate regional emissions without a federal standard.
Mr. Clarke also promised that while President Bush failed to follow through on campaign pledges to curb climate change, the next president will be held to a much tighter standard.
“The writing is on the wall that the next administration will be taking up the campaign promise that Bush made originally that he would regulate CO2 emissions,” he added.
But for now, state and regional efforts continue to set the tone on capping emissions.
In January, Massachusetts joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, committing the Commonwealth to a multi-state effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and tackle global climate change by developing cap-and-trade programs across the Northeast.
Although the effort started in 2005, then-Gov. Mitt Romney decided not to sign on. But Gov. Deval Patrick did on Jan. 18, making Massachusetts the ninth state to join the effort.
At the signing, Mr. Patrick pledged to use the proceeds of the sale of emissions allowances to fund an aggressive program of energy savings for households and industry.
“Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges of our time,” he said. “On this day, we want everyone to know that Massachusetts will not stand on the sidelines.”
Bob Keough, spokesman for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said that although the state had stood on the sidelines of the initiative for the two previous years, it has always been working to improve its environment and regulate its carbon emissions.
“That was a decision made by the prior administrations which had concerns, which were legitimate, about the potential cost impact” of the regional compact, he said, adding that Mr. Patrick has concluded that “we will be able to keep price increases down.”
“The Carbon Boom,” which the U.S. Public Interest Research Group released April 12, found that while U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel consumption grew from almost 5 billion metric tons to almost 5.9 billion metric tons between 1990 and 2004, an increase of 18 percent, there were no increases in emissions in Delaware, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.
“Many states are not waiting for federal legislation to combat climate change,” Mr. Kerry said. “Lots of states, including Massachusetts through RGGI [the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative], have already taken it upon themselves to address climate change.”
But such regional efforts could be severely affected by federal legislation, and current bills proposed in Congress feature a potpourri of possible emissions requirements, some much tougher than others.
Mr. Kerry’s bill, which he introduced Feb. 1 with U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, calls for a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 65 percent below 2000 levels by 2050.
Mr. Olver’s bill, introduced with Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, R-Md., in the last two congressional sessions and reintroduced on the eve of President Bush’s State of the Union speech this year, calls for a 75 percent reduction of emissions in the next 50 years.
Other Senate bills have been introduced by Sens. John S. McCain, R-Ariz., and Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., and by Sens. Barbara L. Boxer, D-Calif., and Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., and other House legislation has been introduced by Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif.
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative was started in 2003 when then-New York Gov. George E. Pataki sent letters to the 11 governors from Maine to Maryland, inviting participation in a cooperative, regional effort.
In December 2005, seven states – Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Vermont – agreed to participate, with Massachusetts and Rhode Island signing on this year.
It will help states reach previously set goals, such as those established by the New England governors and the Eastern Canadian premiers in a Climate Change Action Plan issued in August 2001, which calls for the reduction of greenhouse gases to 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. Mr. Patrick also renewed that effort when he signed the regional initiative.
Under the initiative, annual emissions of CO2 in Massachusetts from power plants of 25 megawatts and larger will be capped at approximately 26 million tons annually statewide from 2009 through 2014, then reduced incrementally by 2.5 percent per year for the next four years.
On the West Coast, the governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington have a similar agreement known as the Western Regional Climate Action Initiative.
On top of this, many states, including Massachusetts, have adopted the California energy emissions standards, which require that every new car sold emit 30 percent less carbon dioxide, 20 percent fewer toxic pollutants and up to 20 percent fewer smog-causing pollutants than the established federal standards.
“California has taken the lead on emissions standards, and they will continue to do so,” Mr. Keough said, adding that Massachusetts would not have the legal authority by itself to regulate emissions standards. “It has to follow California’s lead,” he said.
But when the federal government will do so – and what the effects of such legislation would be – is yet to be determined.
Mr. Kerry said: “It’s still too early to say what would happen to those efforts if federal legislation passes, because we don’t know what that would look like. But the important thing is that individual states are acting.”
He added, “I am proud that Gov. Patrick decided to have Massachusetts rejoin RGGI and tackle greenhouse gas emissions. It was the right decision for our environment, our economy and our security.”
Mr. Keough said requirements from the initiative would ultimately supersede current plant regulations.
“Massachusetts has led the way,” Mr. Kerry said. “The Supreme Court has spoken, Americans are making themselves heard and we’re going to keep fighting until a serious solution to climate change is enacted.”
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