US: July 14, 2008


NEW YORK - The top US environmental regulator Friday declined to take steps to regulate planet-warming emissions under existing pollution laws despite a Supreme Court decision that has pressured his agency to act.


Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson said Congress should make rules to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming.

US lawmakers said the move means the Bush administration has saddled the next president with the responsibility of rule making. A proposed US climate bill died last month in the Senate.

Last year's Massachusetts v. EPA Supreme Court ruling had found that greenhouse gases can be regulated under the US Clean Air Act. The decision pressured the EPA to reconsider its refusal to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from new cars and trucks.

But instead of laying out rules, Johnson solicited public comments for a 120-day period on a nearly 1,000 page draft on the effects of climate change and the ramifications of the Clean Air Act on greenhouse emissions.

"If the nation is serious about regulating greenhouse gases, the Clean Air Act is the wrong tool for the job and it's really at the feet of Congress to come up with good legislation that cuts through what will likely be decades of regulation and litigation," Johnson told reporters in a teleconference.

The White House said in a statement that the "onerous command-and-control regulation contemplated in the EPA staff draft would impose crippling costs on the economy in the form of a massive hidden tax, without even ensuring that the intended overall emissions reductions occur."

Johnson's call for a new comment period, on top of other such periods, comes as the EPA had been making progress on rule making. In March, the EPA started writing regulations for emissions from cars and stationary sources like power plants.

But Friday Johnson said Congress could make rules faster than the agency.

He said the time it would take to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and would be akin to walking across the entire country, while getting Congress to make rules would be like traveling on a supersonic jet.


DUCKING RESPONSIBILITY

Environmentalists and lawmakers said the EPA's move Friday was the latest instance of pressure by the Bush administration on the agency to delay action on climate.

Senate Democrat Barbara Boxer said "despite the Supreme Court's finding that EPA was ducking its responsibility under the law to control global warming emissions, the Bush administration continues to block all action."

Earlier in the week Boxer accused the Bush administration of a "cover-up" aimed at stopping the EPA from tackling greenhouse gas emissions by editing testimony on global warming last year.

A White House spokesman said at the time that government offices normally review initiatives for inaccuracies.

Frank O'Donnell, the president of nonprofit group Clean Air Watch, said the White House has turned the EPA process "into a road map to nowhere."

Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, said "the deliberate efforts to delay adherence to the Supreme Court's decision are reckless and irresponsible,"

The delay gives some car-makers, electric utilities and oil refiners time to prepare for changes in their products and plants that could cost them billions of dollars.

The Alliance of Automobile Makers said the Clean Air Act "does not include all of the tools and criteria needed to address the global issue of climate change, including requirements to balance the economic effects and impacts on US manufacturing jobs along with the environmental considerations."

Both US presidential candidates say they support regulating greenhouse gases with the help of market mechanisms such as cap and trade. (Additional reporting by Tom Doggett in Washington; Editing by Christian Wiessner)


Story by Timothy Gardner


REUTERS NEWS SERVICE