Bush attacks EPA on CO2

The White House on Friday took dramatic steps to head off a massive expansion in the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases, which the agency had considered in response to a Supreme Court ruling this year.

The Bush administration rejected an EPA proposal to regulate greenhouse gases under the 1963 Clean Air Act, taking the unusual step of publicly releasing internal criticism of the EPA’s plan.

“The onerous command-and-control regulation contemplated in the EPA staff draft would impose crippling costs on the economy in the form of a massive hidden tax, without even ensuring that the intended overall emissions reductions occur,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said.

The administration released for public review and comment 85 pages of scathing critiques from five Cabinet agencies and three other offices, instead of resolving the interagency dispute internally.

The White House said it took the step in the hope that letting Congress see for itself the details of the 500-page EPA proposal would persuade it not to pass a strict regulatory scheme. Friday’s action effectively ends the possibility of any regulatory steps being taken against greenhouse gases during the Bush administration.

“We’re hopeful that Congress sees that that’s the train wreck the president was talking about,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.

Further, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson said he disagreed with the idea of using the Clean Air Act for greenhouse gas regulation, as suggested in his agency’s own proposal, which runs to nearly 500 pages.

The Clean Air Act, Mr. Johnson said, is “an outdated law originally enacted to control regional pollutants that cause direct health effects [and] is ill-suited for the task of regulating global greenhouse gases.”

“One point is clear: the potential regulation of greenhouse gases under any portion of the Clean Air Act could result in an unprecedented expansion of EPA authority that would have a profound effect on virtually every sector of the economy and touch every household in the land,” Mr. Johnson said.

The EPA issued its proposed rule in response to the Supreme Court’s April decision that the federal government does have the authority to regulate greenhouse gases. That decision also gave the EPA the task of deciding whether global warming posed a threat to the public health or welfare.

A former EPA official, Jason Burnett, has accused Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and the White House Council on Environmental Quality of pressuring another government official to remove from congressional testimony last fall a finding that global warming is a “serious public health concern.”

The Bush administration’s move on Friday means that the next president will have to decide whether to give the EPA broad, climate change-related regulatory powers, or to push Congress to pass a law implementing emission controls.

John Walke, clean air director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said he wants the president to do both.

“Those two options need not supplant one another. You could have regulations followed by more well-conceived legislation,” he said. “You can craft more tailored legislation, … but that in no way should serve as excuse for inaction.”

“The Bush administration has passed the buck,” Mr. Walke said.

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