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States Want Delay on Emission Rules

By STEPHEN POWER and IAN TALLEY

A growing number of state regulators are urging the Obama administration to slow the rollout of proposed federal rules curbing industrial greenhouse-gas emissions, saying the administration's approach could overwhelm them with paperwork, delay construction projects and undercut their own efforts to fight climate change.

Bloomberg News

Some state regulators are calling on the EPA to go slowly with its new emissions rules. Above, the Pittsburg power plant in Pittsburg, Calif.

 

The concerns echo some criticisms that business groups -- including the American Petroleum Institute and the National Association of Manufacturers -- have voiced about the potential consequence of new regulations, though the states generally don't challenge the legality of the proposed regulations, as some business groups have. Indeed, many state regulators continue to say they support the Environmental Protection Agency's effort to regulate greenhouse gases. Their concerns, they say, have more to do with how quickly such rules should be phased in, and how to pay for an expansion in regulatory oversight at a time when their budgets are in the red.

Regulators from around the U.S., including Kansas, Pennsylvania, Florida and California, are calling on the EPA to go slowly with its new rules, and in some cases warning that they lack funding to regulate some of the new emissions sources that would be covered.

The states' warnings vary in urgency, with some saying the EPA's proposal can be easily tweaked and others urging the agency to reconsider the proposal, predicting dire consequences. South Carolina regulators, in a letter to EPA dated Dec. 23, said the proposal will cause chaos and warned that many construction projects -- and jobs -- are at risk.

In a Dec. 24 letter to the EPA, the California Energy Commission, which oversees energy policy in the state, said the EPA's proposal "will likely retard, rather than facilitate," reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions from its electricity sector.

Because California, which has been a leader among states in pursuing its own emissions efforts, plans to require electric utilities to use more renewable power than they do currently, the state needs new natural-gas-fired power plants to provide back-up power when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine. Most of those new plants aren't subject to the EPA permit process but will require permits under the EPA's proposal, the state says.

"We are gravely concerned that EPA's current proposal will likely create a huge administrative burden," said Melissa Jones, the commission's executive director. While most states stop short of predicting job losses, California says the proposed rules would cause "gridlock" on the construction of power plants.

Kansas's Department of Health and Environment has warned that the EPA proposal will affect some animal-feeding operations as well as some municipal solid-waste landfills, and Florida's Department of Environmental Protection has called the proposed permitting approach unmanageable.

The EPA declined to comment about the criticisms raised by state regulators. "We are still reviewing the comments. No decisions have been made about the final rule," an EPA spokeswoman said.

The Obama administration has said it would prefer that Congress pass legislation that would use a so-called cap-and-trade system to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. Under a cap-and-trade system, the government would require companies to hold permits in order to emit greenhouse gases. Over time, the government would issue fewer permits, bringing emissions down while allowing companies to buy and sell permits among themselves. But prospects for that legislation passing the Senate -- at least in its current form -- are dim, leaving EPA regulation as the administration's main tool.

In order to acquire a permit, facilities would be required to demonstrate to state or local regulators that they are using the best practices and technologies to minimize greenhouse-gas emissions. The decision on what constitutes those practices would, in most cases, be left to states, which are expected to rely heavily on guidance from the EPA. The EPA is expected to publish such guidance in the coming months.

Officials in other states say they worry the EPA won't give them enough time to revise their own state rules, which generally set much lower emissions thresholds for regulating air pollutants. If the EPA doesn't give them enough time, state officials say, tens of thousands of new air-quality permits would need to be issued over the next 18 months or so, a scenario that state officials say could delay the process for many new facilities.

Citing budget shortfalls, some state agencies are suggesting the EPA propose new fees on businesses that could generate revenue that states could use to hire more employees to process permits. But the proposals would likely encounter opposition as many businesses are still struggling to recover from the recession.

More . . .

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If you think your electricity + heating bill has been going up in the last few years, just wait!  We are yet to begin to feel the pain point on these new emission standards... They will affect the price of every single thing we buy.


-- Edited by Sanders on Sunday 10th of January 2010 11:43:40 PM