Washington (Platts)--14Jan2009

Lisa Jackson, President-elect Barack Obama's choice to head the US
Environmental Protection Agency, told the Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee Wednesday that her agency will not wait for Congress to enact
climate change legislation and will use the Clean Air Act to begin limiting
greenhouse gas emissions from such sources as power plants, refineries and
other heavy industries.

While the Supreme Court in 2007 ruled that EPA has the authority to
regulate GHGs under the CAA, it must make a formal determination whether the
emissions contribute to climate change. Jackson was clear that she believes
they do and that a so-called "endangerment finding" would lead to regulations.

"When that finding happens, when EPA makes a decision, it will indeed
trigger the regulation of CO2 for this country," she told the committee
hearing convened to consider her nomination.

She promised Republican committee members who are skeptical of such
regulation that she would consider the views of many. "My commitment will be
that if I am confirmed, we will have those conversations," she said. "All
industries have the potential to do environmental harm."

Jackson, a former director of the New Jersey Department of Environmental
Protection, is a favorite of environmentalists.

She also said that the Obama administration would push for a greenhouse
gas "cap-and-trade" system to address climate change. Ongoing rulemakings to
control mercury, sulfur, and nitrogen emissions would complicate her work but
provide an opportunity to finally give industry "a clear roadmap" for the
future, she said.

"All those things together mean there will an extraordinary burst of
activity not just at EPA but also in Congress," she said. She said EPA would
come up with new mercury rule and a plan to replace and strengthen the
defunct Clean Air Interstate Rule for nitrogen and sulfur pollution from power
plants.

In addition, she promised to immediately allow California and over a
dozen other states to enact stringent greenhouse gas tailpipe standards for
new cars and trucks. The Bush Administration EPA did not give California its
requested Clean Air Act waiver that would have allowed the state to begin
regulating automotive emissions.

Jackson told committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat,
that if confirmed, "I will immediately revisit the waiver." Boxer replied that
Jackson's likely boss said during the campaign that he would grant the waiver
and voted to do so when he was in the Senate.

--Alexander Duncan, alexander_duncan@platts.com