Earth Equity News

Can EPA Handle the Job? By Bradford Plumer, NewRepublic, February 8, 2010. "EPA officials have stayed fairly tight-lipped on their exact plans going forward, but here's a sketch of how many experts think the agency would go about cracking down on greenhouse gases. In March, the EPA will propose its new fuel-economy standards for cars and light trucks (the goal is an average of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016). And as soon as that happens, the agency would be legally obligated to begin the process of regulating stationary sources, too -- though the precise timeline here is still fuzzy. The first wave of regulations would involve the EPA's 'Prevention of Significant Deterioration' program. Anyone who wanted to build a new power plant or factory-or upgrade an existing facility -- would need to apply for a state permit and adopt 'best available control technology' for greenhouse-gas emissions. The EPA hasn't specified what technologies that might entail, but it could mean anything from more efficient processes for cement kilns to forcing coal-fired plants to switch to cleaner natural gas. The appropriate technologies would be decided on a plant-by-plant basis. Since this would only apply to new plants -- or plants undergoing significant upgrades -- it wouldn't affect the vast majority of existing polluters...

"If the EPA can survive that challenge, it would then have to figure out how to regulate existing polluters. This part is crucial: The original Clean Air Act ended up grandfathering in existing coal plants, which perversely gave utilities incentives to keep their oldest and dirtiest boilers chugging along for as long as possible. The agency has a variety of options here. According to Jason Burnett, a former EPA official who helped craft greenhouse-gas rules during the Bush years, one plausible scenario would see the agency setting pollution targets for different industrial sectors under section 111 of the Clean Air Act, the 'New Source Performance Standards' program. Cement kilns and nitric-acid plants would get regulated first, possibly as soon as this year. After that would come oil and gas refineries, and, later still, fossil-fuel power plants. These rules could involve anything from inflexible limits (i.e., kilns have to emit no more than a certain amount of carbon-dioxide per ton of cement produced) to a carbon-trading program, although the latter would be much dicier, legally speaking... In the coming months, many climate advocates may have to shift gears. Instead of talking about the EPA's authority as some terrifying prospect that only the passage of a cap-and-trade bill can stop, the EPA option could increasingly get framed as something worth defending in its own right. Especially since it may be one of the few viable options left for tackling climate change."