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Lisa Jackson Walks 'Knife's Edge' on EPA's Carbon Controls
2010-09-02 16:27:16.269 GMT
By Kim Chipman
Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Early in his presidency, Barack
Obama made it clear that if Congress failed to limit carbon
emissions, he would use his authority under the Clean Air Act to
control greenhouse gases. Now that Congress has pulled the plug
on legislation, that task has fallen to Lisa Jackson, Obama's
Environmental Protection Agency chief.
Caught between business groups, Republicans and even some
Senate Democrats who want to stop her, and environmental
organizations that say she's not going far enough, Jackson may
have one of the toughest jobs in Washington, Bloomberg
Businessweek reports in its Sept. 6 edition.
Even Jackson agrees that regulation is inferior to
legislation.
"I have always said legislation would be better,"
Jackson, 48, said in an interview. "There is only so much this
agency can do under the Clean Air Act. That being said, you can
get started, and we need to get started."
It took a 2007 Supreme Court ruling to clarify that the
1970 law gave the agency the power to regulate carbon at all.
One of Jackson's first moves as EPA administrator was to take up
the court's invitation and declare carbon an environmental
threat. Within weeks, she followed that with rules requiring
automakers to boost fuel economy 5 percent a year and average
35.5 miles per gallon by 2016.
Those rules, effective Jan. 2, will mark the U.S.'s first
nationwide limits on greenhouse-gas pollution in the effort to
curb global warming. Having taken that step, Jackson by law must
clamp down on other carbon sources.
Cleaners, Pizza Shops
In an economic downturn, Jackson has said she hopes to
avoid writing detailed diktats for small businesses, schools,
hospitals, and apartment buildings, many of which emit enough
carbon that broad-based rules could force them to install
expensive equipment. That could be politically explosive in a
midterm election year, letting Republicans say that Obama is
strangling the economy.
Instead, Jackson has moved cautiously by offering what she
calls a "tailored" approach that exempts mom-and-pop dry
cleaners and pizza parlors and initially regulates only power
plants and oil refineries. Among those, only new or expanding
plants need comply.
Even so, business groups, led by the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, are taking Jackson to court saying she has no
authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
Keith McCoy, vice-president for energy and resources policy at
the National Association of Manufacturers, calls the greenhouse-
gas rules "one of the greatest bureaucratic power grabs in the
history of the United States."
All or Nothing
Some industry groups are arguing that Jackson's not going
far enough. It's all or nothing, they say, knowing that all-out
regulation would be untenable.
If the EPA wishes to regulate carbon, "then it ought to
have to regulate facilities large and small and suffer all the
consequences, warts and all," said Scott Segal, a Washington
lawyer at Bracewell & Giuliani LLP who lobbies for coal-fired
utilities Southern Co. and Duke Energy Corp., among others.
Lobbyists such as Segal are on guard for Jackson's next
move in coming months, when the EPA will issue guidance to
refiners and power plants on the "best available control
technology" to limit the largest amount of emissions, taking
into account cost and availability. If the guidance is severe,
it could delay new construction and expansion by manufacturers
-- and harm job creation, Segal said.
Two-Year Delay
Some Democrats from coal-producing states want to stop or
postpone the EPA's efforts. Senator Jay Rockefeller, a West
Virginia Democrat, has readied a measure that would delay any
rule for two years. To succeed, he would need 18 other Democrats
to join 41 Republicans, which isn't impossible, considering that
half the states mine coal or burn it for most of their
electricity.
"The president and the White House have been clear that
they would veto any attempt to take away authority here,"
Jackson said.
An environmental group, the Center for Biological
Diversity, sued the EPA in early August, claiming the tailored
regulations leave out too many large polluters. Republican
Governor Rick Perry of Texas has filed a lawsuit against the
agency for singling out refineries and power plants.
"It's a knife's edge the EPA is walking right now," said
Robert Stavins, director of Harvard University's Environmental
Economics Program in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He calls the EPA
approach "inappropriate and unfortunate" if it ends up playing
"into the hands of the far right and others who don't want any
action on climate change."
Jackson, the agency's first black administrator, has made a
priority of "environmental justice," the effort to ensure that
poor and minority groups don't bear the brunt of environmental
risks such as waste dumps.
Chemical Engineer
Born in Pennsylvania, Jackson grew up in the Ninth Ward of
New Orleans, the daughter of a mailman and a secretary who also
worked as a substitute teacher. She was a high-school
valedictorian and graduated with honors from Tulane University.
She earned a master's degree in chemical engineering from
Princeton University in New Jersey before starting her career at
the EPA, working in Washington and New York.
After 16 years at the EPA, Jackson joined New Jersey's
environmental protection department, where she helped push for
cuts in greenhouse gases. From 2006 to 2008, she was head of the
agency under Democratic Governor Jon Corzine.
In a prelude to the dispute she faces today, Jackson was
criticized by business groups for policies they found too
aggressive, and by environmentalists who didn't think she was
going far enough. "She found a good balance," said Corzine,
for whom she also served as chief of staff.
Inhofe's Praise
Even Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican and a
leading skeptic of man-made global warming, likes Jackson's
style.
"She's established her integrity and openness to Democrats
and Republicans," said Inhofe, the senior Republican on the
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Inhofe was so
impressed after meeting Jackson that he gave her a holiday card
with a photo of his family, which now sits, framed, on her
office shelf.
"I'm a firm believer in the value of talking to people, of
working together no matter what the politics," Jackson said.
While Representative John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, has
called attempts to regulate carbon through existing law a
"glorious mess," Jackson is forging ahead.
"The regulations we put in place will be a start and I'm
committed to them being a good start," Jackson said. "Part of
my belief is that there is absolutely no reason for the economy
and the environment to be at opposite ends of a spectrum."
For Related News and Information:
Carbon Markets: EMIS <GO>
Top Environmental Markets News: TOP ENV <GO>
News About the EPA: NI EPA <GO>
--Editors: Paula Dwyer, Larry Liebert
To contact the reporter on this story:
Kim Chipman in Washington at +1-202-624-1927 or
Kchipman@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Larry Liebert at +1-202-624-1936 or
LLiebert@bloomberg.net.
