The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world’s largest business federation, and the state of Texas have filed separate petitions in federal court in Washington, DC, challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the Clean Air Act (CAA).

The petitions, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, challenge the agency’s December endangerment finding that carbon dioxide (CO2) and other GHG emissions pose a danger to the public’s health and welfare. The decision lays the groundwork for the EPA to more stringently regulate emissions from power plants, refineries, factories and vehicles under the CAA — even if Congress fails to enact climate change legislation. In addition to the court challenge, Texas has asked EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to review her decision.

“The U.S. Chamber strongly supports efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, but we believe there’s a right way and a wrong way to achieve that goal,” said Steven Law, chief legal officer and general counsel of the U.S. Chamber.

“The wrong way is through the EPA’s endangerment finding, which triggers Clean Air Act regulation…The right way is through bipartisan legislation that promotes new technologies, emphasizes efficiency, ensures affordable energy for families and businesses, and defends American jobs while returning our economy to prosperity.”

“We also need a comprehensive international [climate change] agreement that includes all CO2-emitting economies, which the Chamber has been actively working toward. We [will] continue to call for Congress to address climate change policy through the legislative process, rather than having EPA misapply environmental statutes like the Clear Air Act or Endangered Species Act that were not created to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.”

The Lone Star State made similar legal arguments. “Texas is aggressively seeking its future in alternative energy through incentives and innovation, not mandates and overreaching regulation,” said Texas. Gov. Rick Perry.

“The EPA’s misguided plan paints a big target on the backs of Texas agriculture and energy producers and the hundreds of thousands of Texans they employ. This legal action is being taken to protect the Texas economy and the jobs that go with it.”

The state’s legal action contends the EPA’s endangerment finding is “legally unsupported” because the agency outsourced its scientific assessment to the scandal-plagued International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has been discredited by evidence that key scientists lacked objectivity, hid flaws in their research and attempted to keep “contravening evidence” out of IPCC reports, according to Texas officials — Perry, Attorney General Greg Abbott and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples.

EPA’s endangerment finding covers the emissions of six key greenhouse gases: CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. The finding comes two years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared in 2007 that GHGs fit within the CAA definition of air pollutants (see Daily GPI, April 3, 2007). EPA is in charge of implementing the CAA.

In Congress Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is leading the charge against EPA’s regulation of GHG emissions. She introduced a “disapproval resolution” last month to block the agency’s efforts to control GHG emissions under the CAA (see Daily GPI, Jan. 22). Like the Chamber’s Law, Murkowski believes GHG emissions should be addressed in climate legislation rather than in regulation, and by Congress — not the Obama administration.

The EPA’ endangerment finding could effectively be negated if Murkowski’s disapproval resolution is ratified. She is expected to bring the resolution up for a vote in early or mid-March, said Murkowski spokesman Robert Dillon. The resolution would only require 51 votes to pass the Senate, but it is much less likely to receive a favorable vote in the House where leaders are strong supporters of GHG regulations.

The bipartisan Senate resolution is backed by three Democrats — Sens. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana — and by 35 Republicans, according to Murkowski. The resolution of disapproval is an instrument rarely used by Congress. It has been attempted only twice in the past — once successfully.

“I continue to believe that this command-and-control approach [by the EPA] is our worst option for reducing emissions…We should take [the] EPA regulations off the table,” Murkowski said in late January.

Murkowski contends that the Obama administration is using the EPA’s threatened action as a stick to get Congress to move more quickly on climate change legislation than it otherwise would. “That strategy has failed so far and will continue to fail in the months ahead because members of Congress will not enact bad legislation in order to stave off bad regulation,” she said.

In offering the disapproval resolution, “my goals here are twofold: to ensure that Congress has sufficient time to work on climate legislation,” and to ensure that a “massive expansion of the Clean Air Act” does not occur before that task is completed, Murkowski said.

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