USSenate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Minority Member Lisa Murkowski and EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson exchanged letters about EPA's effort to implement regulations limiting greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Murkowski, who introduced a bill in January in an effort to stop EPA's plan, came away dissatisfied. In a Mar. 5 letter to Jackson, Murkowski asked 13 questions about EPA's effort to regulate GHGs under CAA. The agency said it issued its Dec. 7 GHG endangerment finding in response to a 2007 US Supreme Court decision rejecting the agency's reasons for denying a Massachusetts petition to regulate GHG emissions from motor vehicles.
Murkowski's questions ranged from regulatory timetables to whether economic impacts were analyzed. Jackson's Mar. 26 response to the latter point was revealing.
Saying that Murkowski's final 3 questions were based on the assumption that implementing GHG limits under CAA would cause US manufacturers to relocate their operations, Jackson could not accept the premise.
No 'credible analysis'
"I have yet to see any credible analysis demonstrating an appreciable risk that any of the steps EPA has actually taken or proposed for addressing [GHG] emissions could economically justify moving US manufacturing abroad," she said. All of the steps are grounded in CAA authorities requiring EPA to consider cost, energy impacts, and available technologies, she added.
Jackson also noted that "unsubstantiated predictions of economic catastrophe" have been directed at many EPA initiatives under the CAA over the years. "When, more than 30 years ago, EPA began using the act to reduce the lead in gasoline and require unleaded fuel for motor vehicles equipped with catalytic converters, the US Chamber of Commerce insisted that 'entire industries might collapse' as a result," she told Murkowski. No industries collapsed, she said, and dangerous lead pollution in US air is 92% lower than it was in 1980.
Alternatives found
Similar concerns were expressed in the late 1990s when the agency issued a rule to phase out use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in refrigerators and cooling systems, Jackson added. "Innovators found alternatives to CFCs and developed new equipment, the combination of which proved both more efficient and safer for the ozone layer," she said.
"So I believe it is appropriate to greet with some skepticism the recent, unsupported claims that economic harm will result from the measured steps EPA is taking now to comply with the Supreme Court's conclusion that [GHG] pollution falls with the [CAA's] scope," Jackson maintained.
Murkowski expressed puzzlement on Mar. 29 that Jackson took so long to respond, and then answered only 2 of the 13 questions. She requested a meeting with the EPA administrator the week of April 12 in a second letter to Jackson after observing that another written exchange probably wouldn't be productive.
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