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Business Group Urges Senate to Delay EPA Carbon Rules (Update1)
2010-09-15 22:13:05.984 GMT
(Updates with comment from EPA in ninth paragraph.)
By Kim Chipman and Simon Lomax
Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The Business Roundtable, a group of
chief executives from companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and
General Electric Co., called on the Senate to delay the Obama
administration's planned regulation of greenhouse gases.
The group supports a measure by Senator Jay Rockefeller, a
West Virginia Democrat, that would block the Environmental
Protection Agency from imposing limits for two years, according
to a letter the Roundtable sent today to Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell, a Kentucky Republican.
The EPA is moving ahead with nationwide rules for carbon-
dioxide emissions implicated in climate change following the
Senate's failure this year to pass legislation aimed at capping
such pollution. Opponents say the rules should be postponed
because they would hurt businesses and consumers grappling with
a sluggish economy.
"EPA regulations only will increase energy costs for U.S.
companies, thereby reducing their competitiveness in
international markets, and drive up consumer costs, while doing
little to reduce global concentrations of greenhouse gas
emissions," the Washington-based business group said in its
letter.
A two-year delay would give the Obama administration and
Congress time to "develop new approaches," the group said.
Reid said yesterday that he would schedule a vote on
Rockefeller's bill before the Senate adjourns for the year.
The EPA, which is using the 1970 Clean Air Act to regulate
carbon pollution, today dismissed the business group's
assertions.
'Proven Wrong'
"These are more of the same forecasts of economic doom by
lobbyists and other defenders of the status quo, claims that
history has proven wrong again and again," agency spokesman
Brendan Gilfillan said in a statement. "History shows that the
Clean Air Act brings about cost-effective strategies to reduce
air pollution while jumpstarting clean energy innovation and
creating good-paying green jobs that can't be exported."
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in an interview last
month that President Barack Obama has made clear he would "veto
any attempt to take away the authority here." Jackson has said
the carbon regulations will be a series of modest steps that add
up to greenhouse gas reductions over time.
Rockefeller's bill is S. 3072.
For Related News and Information:
Carbon Markets: EMIS <GO>
Top Environmental Markets News: TOP ENV <GO>
News About the EPA: NI EPA <GO>
--With assistance from Lisa Lerer in Washington. Editors:
Larry Liebert, John Lear
To contact the reporter on this story:
Kim Chipman in Washington at +1-202-624-1927 or
Kchipman@bloomberg.net;
Simon Lomax in Washington at +1-202-654-4305 or
slomax@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Larry Liebert at +1-202-624-1936 or
LLiebert@bloomberg.net.
