The Senate on Thursday turned back a largely Republican plan to
block Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) greenhouse gas rules,
voting 47-53 to stave off what would have been a major blow to the
White House and the Democratic climate agenda.
Fifty-one votes would have been needed in favor of the plan to advance
it toward a final vote.
Six Democrats voted with Republicans for Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s
(R-Alaska) unsuccessful plan: Evan Bayh (Ind.), Mary Landrieu (La.),
Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Mark Pryor (Ark.), Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Jay
Rockefeller (W.Va.). No Republicans opposed it.
The vote is a victory for the White House — which threatened a veto —
and environmental groups that lobbied against Murkowski’s resolution.
The plan would have overturned the EPA’s “endangerment finding” last
year that greenhouse gases threaten humans. The finding is the legal
underpinning of EPA rules to begin limiting emissions from vehicles,
power plants, refineries and other sources.
The White House and many climate advocates say that passing a climate
change bill would be preferable to EPA rules.
But the specter of regulation keeps pressure on Congress to act, and
advocates also say EPA action is needed if Congress remains at an
impasse on a climate bill.
Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National
Mining Association and the National Petrochemical and Refiners
Association had lobbied in favor of Murkowski’s plan.
The oil industry’s biggest trade group, the American Petroleum
Institute, said it was “disappointed” by the Senate vote. “The Clean Air
Act was never intended, nor should it be used, to address climate
change. It was designed to control traditional air pollutants, not
greenhouse gas emissions that come from every vehicle, home, factory and
farm in America,” the group said in a statement.
On the other side, a slew of environmental and liberal groups were
against it, as were the National Farmers Union and the Alliance of
Automobile Manufacturers, among others.
Environmental groups cheered the Senate vote. “Today a majority of the
Senate decided to move forward in the fight to reduce the carbon
pollution that threatens our communities and wild places. We simply can
no longer live with the free dumping of harmful pollution into the
atmosphere,” said Wilderness Society President William Meadows in a
prepared statement.
Murkowski and other backers of the plan argued that EPA rules will
eventually impose costly emissions requirements on a massive swath of
the economy.
While EPA has issued rules to limit Clean Air Act permitting mandates to
large emitters like coal-fired power plants, Murkowski said on the
Senate floor that the courts would strike down EPA’s effort to shield
small businesses.
That means EPA rules would reach residential buildings, schools,
hospitals and scores of other sources, she said. Murkowski said the EPA
rules are “something that is going to impact every aspect, 100 percent,
of our economy.”
“We need to be growing our economy, not paralyzing it,” she said. “The
time has come to take the worst option for regulating greenhouse gases
off the table once and for all.”
But Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) bashed Murkowski’s measure during the
debate, echoing Obama administration and environmental group claims that
it’s a gift to the oil industry made even more misguided by the Gulf of
Mexico oil spill.
She called it “ironic” that the measure was surfacing “at the same time
that every American sees graphic evidence on television every single day
of the deadly carbon pollution in the Gulf.”
“Big Oil backs the Murkowski resolution. So whose side are we on?” said
Boxer as she displayed photos of oiled birds in the Gulf. Boxer chairs
the Environment and Public Works Committee.
“Why should we let BP and their lobbyists take the driver’s seat?” said
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).
Boxer also said Congress should not be in the business of overturning a
scientific finding. “Imagine 100 senators — not scientists, not health
experts — deciding what pollutant is dangerous and what pollutant is
not. Personally, I believe it is ridiculous for politicians ... to make
this scientific decision,” she said.
However, while proponents of mandatory curbs on greenhouse gas emissions
generally opposed the measure, the political positioning has other
layers.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who has co-sponsored a climate change bill
with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) that caps emissions, also voted for
the Murkowski plan.
“The agency’s early rules on this topic give me cause for concern,” she
said on the floor, claiming that EPA rules could affect Maine businesses
employing thousands of workers.
She said a “better way forward” is for Congress to pass a comprehensive
climate plan. “It is Congress’s job, not [that of] the EPA, to decide
how best to regulate greenhouse gas emissions,” she said.
The defeat of the Murkowski plan comes as Senate Democratic leaders
struggle with how to craft an energy package that Majority Leader Harry
Reid (D-Nev.) wants on the floor next month.
Shortly before the vote, Reid met in his office with the chairmen of
several committees that have jurisdiction over energy and climate
policy, and with other Democratic leaders. Rockefeller, the chairman of
the Senate Commerce Committee, said no firm decisions came out of the
meeting.
A key question is whether Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman
(I-Conn.) can win traction for their sweeping climate change bill that
includes a modified version of cap-and-trade and new support for
building nuclear power plants and alternative energy.
Democratic leaders could also try and advance a narrower energy package
that omits carbon caps.
Rockefeller — who has long been worried about how emissions limits would
affect his home-state coal industry — said some lawmakers expressed
concern at the meeting about the viability of the Kerry-Lieberman plan.
“I think there is a dominant concern [which is] ‘What’s the point of
doing anything without 60 votes?’” he told reporters after the vote on
the Murkowski plan. “And I think that there’s some feeling that you
don’t spend time on the floor trying to figure out if you have got 60
votes. You have to understand before you go to the floor that you have
got 60 votes.”
Asked if he thought Kerry’s plan could get 60 votes, Rockefeller
replied: “I don’t think so. But I think John [Kerry] does.”
This story was originally posted at 4:23 p.m., and updated at 5 p.m and
7:36 p.m.