Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has sent letters to more than 150 companies and trade associations asking them to identify the Obama administration regulations that his panel should investigate.

The letters were sent to companies and associations representing a range of industries, including healthcare, energy, auto manufacturing and drug manufacturing. Issa is seeking responses by Jan. 10.

In one letter to the National Association of Manufacturers, Issa requested “assistance in identifying existing and proposed regulations that have negatively impacted job growth in your members’ industry,” Politico reported. He further said “suggestions on reforming identified regulations and rulemaking process would be appreciated.”

Letters also were sent to Duke Energy Corp., the American Petroleum Institute and the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association.

A key area that Issa’s committee is expected to tackle is the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulation of greenhouse gas emissions by major polluters, such as power plants and refiners.

The EPA’s regulation of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which officially began Jan. 2, represents an “unconstitutional power grab that will kill millions of jobs — unless Congress steps in,” said Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), the new chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee.

In April 2007 the Supreme Court “instructed the agency to determine whether greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide pose (or potentially pose) a danger to human health and safety under the Clean Air Act. In December 2009 the agency determined they were a danger [see NGI, Dec. 14, 2009] — and gave itself the green light to issue rules cutting CO2 emissions on a wide range of enterprises from coal plants to paper mills to foundries,” Upton and Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, wrote in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal. “In response, states including Texas and Virginia, as well as dozens of companies and business associations, are challenging the EPA’s endangerment finding and proposed rules in court.”

Challengers also include the state of Alabama, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, the National Association of Home Builders and the Western States Petroleum Association (see NGI, Feb.22, 2010).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is currently considering a partial stay of the EPA’s rules and is expected to begin issuing decisions sometime in 2012, according to Upton and Phillips.

Upton said earlier this month that Republicans plan to dust off a seldom-used statute — the Congressional Review Act — to overturn EPA regulation of GHG emissions. The act allows Congress to kill federal rules but it has been used successfully only once, The Hill reported. An attempt to kill EPA rules with it sputtered in the Senate in 2010, it noted.

“The EPA, of course, is in a hurry to move ahead. It wants to begin regulating the largest emitters first. But it has the authority under its endangerment finding to regulate emissions by hospitals, small businesses, schools, churches and perhaps even single-family homes. As companies wait for definitive court rulings, the country could face a de facto construction moratorium on industrial facilities that could provide badly needed jobs,” Upton and Phillips wrote.

“The best solution is for Congress to overturn the EPA’s proposed greenhouse gas regulations outright,” they said. If Democrats refuse to do so, they should “at least join a sensible bipartisan compromise to mandate that the EPA delay its regulations until the courts complete their examination of the agency’s endangerment finding and proposed rules,” they said.

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