Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said Wednesday she would prefer to see Congress deliver a comprehensive plan for regulating greenhouse gas emissions than utilize her agency’s authority to control emissions.
Testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on the proposed Waxman-Markey Energy Bill, Jackson said the process of regulating GHGs under the Clean Air Act would be time consuming and that the administration’s recent finding that GHGs pose a danger to human health was “imposed” on the organization through a 2007 Supreme Court ruling.
RFF President Phil Sharp recently outlined the difficulties the EPA could face as the sole enforcers of GHG emission regulations. Sharp concludes the path to regulation through the Clean Air Act would be long and complicated, with legal actions available to both proponents and opponents alike.
Sharp suggests Congress carefully plan its course of action with regard to regulating emissions and consider if and how their authority will mesh with the authority of the EPA.
Read his full commentary: "A Regulatory Conundrum," published in the November/December 2008 issue of The Environmental Forum.
