Vote due on Obama climate powers

Four proposals seek to ban or limit US government’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions The US Senate is due to vote as early as Wednesday on measures that would strip the Obama administration of its powers to act on climate change. Up to four separate proposals in circulation this week would seek an outright ban – or at the very least severe limits and delays – on the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. President Barack Obama was expected to deliver a speech later on Wednesday pledging to cut America’s oil imports by one-third over the next decade, by ramping up domestic oil production and increasing energy efficiency. White House officials said Obama would continue to press for new nuclear plants, despite the still-unfolding crisis at Japan’s stricken Fukushima plant, and also said that the president would make a call for the manufacture of more electric cars. The various measures in front of the Senate would prevent the EPA from going ahead with new rules on greenhouse gas emissions from major power stations that started to come into effect this year. The measures were expected to be attached to a small business bill. The leading Republican proposal would impose a ban on any future EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, and prevent further improvements in car emissions standards after 2017. But it is the other proposals, put forward by Democrats, that could in the end destroy the last hopes of any strong action on climate change during Obama’s remaining two years in the White House. Even the most ardent opponents of the EPA’s climate change mission, such as Oklahoma senator James Inhofe, were unsure on Tuesday whether opponents of the climate regulation had the votes to pass an absolute ban. The White House has also said it would veto bills blocking the EPA. Inhofe told reporters he hoped the votes would put Democrats in coal and heavy industry states under pressure. “I do think this will force some Democrats to go on the record. And then the next time isn’t going to be quite so easy.” he told The Hill newspaper . But a Democratic proposal initially put forward by Jay Rockefeller, from the coal-mining state of West Virginia, was also gaining traction. Rockefeller’s proposal would put a two-year hold on EPA regulation on major installations. The idea is expected to pick up some support from coal state Democrats or those from conservative areas who are facing tough re-election fights in 2012 against conservative Tea Party Republicans. Obama administration officials had initially hoped to push Congress to pass climate change legislation, arguing that it was a better alternative to expanding government regulation through the EPA. Obama also offered deep compromises on his energy agenda to try to win over Republican support. He expanded offshore drilling only a few weeks before the BP oil disaster, extended $36bn in loan guarantees for new nuclear plants, and just last week opened up 7,500 acres for coal mining in Wyoming . But the strategy of using the EPA to scare Republicans into action backfired. After climate change legislation failed in the Senate , EPA action became the only course left to the Obama administration. Meanwhile, a new breed of conservative Republican vehemently opposed to government regulation began mobilising against the EPA and climate change regulations, calling the move to protect the climate a “job killer”. “It was a threatening argument [regulation through the EPA] – it did not help,” Senator Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, told reporters on Tuesday. “It was clearly meant to be intimidating, but it did not succeed and the pushback now is strong.” Climate change Carbon emissions Obama administration United States Suzanne Goldenberg guardian.co.uk

Posted by on March 30, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.