EPA chief slams bills to block climate rules, affirms Obama's veto threat

The Hill ^ | February 2, 2011 | Ben Geman

[jazusamo]

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson on Wednesday attacked bills piling up in Congress that would block the agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and reiterated the White House veto threat.

Jackson, speaking to reporters, initially declined to address whether President Obama would veto bills that stop climate rules, but later said that past threats still stand.

“What has been stated from the White House is that the president’s advisers would advise him to veto any legislation that passed that would take away the EPA’s greenhouse gas authority,” Jackson told reporters. “Nothing has changed.”

Jackson defended the agency’s initiatives to regulate emissions from power plants and other facilities.

“Those [bills] would halt EPA’s common-sense steps under the Clean Air Act to protect Americans from harmful air pollution that until now has not been regulated at all from any sources in this country,” Jackson told reporters after testifying at a Senate hearing on drinking-water safety.

She reiterated her view that EPA’s Clean Air Act rules are not a drag on the economy. 

“I want to point out that we already regulate carbon from automobiles, we already regulate it from the really large sources, those that burn the equivalent of a railroad car of carbon a day, and the economy is fine,” Jackson said, adding that regulations help steer investment into the “clean energy economy.”

Several top GOP senators floated a sweeping bill this week that would prevent the federal government from regulating greenhouse gases or addressing climate change through environmental statutes.

Later on Wednesday, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) are expected to float a measure that would specifically block Clean Air Act rules, a House GOP aide said Tuesday evening.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), meanwhile, is pushing legislation that doesn’t remove EPA’s authority for good but would block regulation of greenhouse gases from stationary facilities for two years.

EPA and the Department of Transportation currently administer joint vehicle mileage and greenhouse gas requirements. 

More controversially, EPA has begun phasing in rules that require large new and modified industrial plants to minimize emissions and is crafting broader national emissions standards for power plants and refineries, among other efforts.

Critics of EPA rules say they will hinder the economy.

[rogue yam]

Lisa Jackson is a smart cookie - it’s too bad she chose to waste her intellect at the EPA.

Intelligence is counterproductive in those who lack morality.

[MrB]

I’d get the death penalty for the stash of incandescents that I have...

[jazusamo]

If Lisa doesn’t know the difference between CO2 and Carbon Monoxide, she should be fired and the EPA shut down!

Great point...She may not but either way they should be shut down.

[freekitty]

Defund the EPA and her.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

She shoulda seen the air in Cleveland, around the Flats, in 1952! Everything was rust red from the steel mills, but the city was prosperous. Plenty of jobs. The air has already been cleaned up to an incredible degree! Of course there are no jobs, and it’s a welfare city, losing population non-stop!

[bray]

Perhaps this time the congress will listen to both sides of the argument?

Pray for Egypt

[musicman]

[Bitsy]

EPA needs to go!

[Texas Fossil]

Take away the EPA’s funding!

Bumpity Bump!

Ask yourself, what would happen if the entire EPA was shut totally down? What would the result be? More worthwhile things would get done, less paperwork, and the cost of the agency would go away. Are any of the consequences of closing the EPA bad? Probably not.

[bert]

Burning carbon is life it’s self. Not burning carbon is stupidity personified.

Lisa needs to be drug around a bit to wear off the stupid rind

[MrB]

Human produced CO2 accounts for 0.117% of the greenhouse effect on earth.
98+% of the greenhouse effect is due to natural water vapor.

[Nervous Tick]

>> Ask yourself, what would happen if the entire EPA was shut totally down?

Yeah, what YOU said.

And when you have answered yourself “Self, life would IMPROVE if the EPA were shut down!”, then ask yourself the same question about OSHA, both DOEs (Education, Energy), HHS, ...

[Texas Fossil]

Absolutely agree, It is TIME to DownSize DC!

Not time to freeze budgets, but time to close entire departments:

Education, EPA, OSHA, EEOC, Energy and others. Bring it on baby....

[DakotaGator]

Time for “Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson” to be dragged in front of the House of Representatives and forcibly reminded that not only did Congress create her POS agency but that Congress can also destroy it.

[SteamShovel]

"EPA’s common-sense steps under the Clean Air Act to protect Americans from harmful air pollution that until now has not been regulated at all from any sources in this country"

“I want to point out that we already regulate carbon...and the economy is fine”

She contradicts herself and is too stupid to even know it.

[Big E]

If the GOP appropriates one dime for the EPA, they should be run out of town on a rail.

[Electric Graffiti]

“Education, EPA, OSHA, EEOC, Energy and others. Bring it on baby....”

It’s all unconstitutional. Decisions should be left to the states.

Once the ponzi schemes of Social Security and Medicare, etc. are ruled unconstitutional......then we can get the Gubbermint to about 1/10 it’s size or less.

[Caipirabob]

Eat hot carbon, socialist, and choke on it.

[Let's Roll]

Yep, the only jobs ‘created’ by their green agenda are IN the EPA.

[Gator113]

We will hang together. LOL