Clean Air Act Withstands Major Attack « It’s Getting Hot In Here

Environmental Groups Unite To Defeat Murkowski Amendment

Washington, DC—The Senate reached an agreement today on the additional amendments that will be considered as part of the FY 2010 Interior Appropriations bill (H.R. 2996), excluding an amendment sponsored by Senator Lisa Murkowski that would have substantially weakened the Clean Air Act’s public health and environmental protections.

“The good news is that a major effort failed to pull the rug out from under the Clean Air Act, one of the nation’s most successful environmental laws. But now, rather than just defending the status quo, the Senate must take a leap forward to repower America with clean energy—cutting pollution, making America more energy independent, and creating millions of clean energy jobs,” said Environment America Federal Global Warming Program Director Emily Figdor.

The final version of the Murkowski amendment would have blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from reducing carbon pollution from the nation’s biggest polluters, including power plants and passenger vehicles, undermining the Clean Air Act’s protections for public health and the environment and delaying America’s move to clean energy.

Below is a letter numerous national environmental organizations sent to the Senate today opposing the Murkowski amendment.

Text of the letter sent to the Senate today:

1Sky * Alaska Wilderness League * Alliance for Climate Protection * Center for American Progress Action Fund * Center for Auto Safety * Center for Biological Diversity * Ceres * Clean Air Task Force * Clean Water Action * Defenders of Wildlife * Environment America * Environmental Defense Fund * League of Women Voters of the United States * National Audubon Society * Natural Resources Defense Council * Oceana * Sierra Club * Southern Alliance for Clean Energy * Southern Environmental Law Center * The Wilderness Society * Union of Concerned Scientists

September 24, 2009

Dear Senator:

We are writing in opposition to Senator Murkowski’s revised appropriations amendment (No. 2530) to the FY 2010 Interior Appropriations bill, H.R. 2996, which concerns carbon dioxide pollution and the Clean Air Act.

The filed amendment’s spending limitation would go well beyond blocking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from curbing carbon dioxide pollution from power plants, refineries, and other big “stationary sources.” It also would block EPA from implementing the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Massachusetts v. EPA by curbing carbon pollution from cars and trucks. If this amendment passes, EPA could not issue the historic consensus standards that President Obama announced in May with the support of the auto makers, the UAW, states, and the environmental community. Here is why:

The first sentence of the amendment says: “No action taken by the Environmental Protection Agency using funds made available under this Act shall have the effect of making carbon dioxide a pollutant subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act . . . for any source other than a mobile source. . . .” This is a reference to Section 169 of the Act, which says that every new or modified major stationary source needs to install best available control technology (BACT), considering costs, for each pollutant “subject to regulation under this chapter,” i.e., under the Clean Air Act.

When EPA issues final vehicle carbon dioxide standards under Section 202 of the Act as planned next March, carbon dioxide will automatically become a pollutant “subject to regulation” under Section 169. From that point on, new or modified major stationary sources will need to install BACT for carbon dioxide, just as they currently do for other dangerous pollutants. This is automatic; there is no way around it without blocking the vehicle rules. Since the Murkowski amendment would bar any action that has the effect of making carbon dioxide “subject to regulation” under Section 169, EPA would be barred from issuing the vehicle standards.

This is why EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said yesterday that the amendment would be “a death knell to the historic agreement between the President and auto makers to increase gas mileage and reduce emissions from cars and trucks.”

Congress should not take any action that would undo the progress already made on carbon pollution from motor vehicles.

Later paragraphs of the revised amendment attempt to limit other collateral damage done by the amendment. But those provisions cannot overcome the effect of the amendment’s first sentence.

We believe common ground can be found to ensure that the Clean Air Act’s stationary source requirements apply only to power plants and other big sources, not smaller sources, and to incorporate this approach in comprehensive energy and climate legislation. But it cannot be accomplished through this rider.

The Murkowski amendment would only move us farther from, not closer to, a bipartisan consensus on comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation that the Senator says she seeks. We strongly urge you to oppose Senator Murkowski’s amendment as well as any other amendments to the Interior Appropriations bill that would delay America’s progress toward a clean energy economy that would create jobs, increase America’s energy security, and cut pollution.

Sincerely,

Gillian Caldwell
Campaign Director
1Sky

Kristen Miller
Government Affairs Director
Alaska Wilderness League

Kevin S. Curtis
Program Director
Alliance for Climate Protection

Daniel J. Weiss
Sr. Fellow & Director of Climate Strategy
Center for American Progress Action Fund

Dan Becker
Director, Safe Climate Campaign
Center for Auto Safety

William Snape
Senior Counsel
Center for Biological Diversity

Mindy S. Lubber
President
Ceres

Armond Cohen
Executive Director
Clean Air Task Force

Lynn Thorp
National Campaigns Coordinator
Clean Water Action

Mary Beth Beetham
Director of Legislative Affairs
Defenders of Wildlife

Anna Aurilio
Washington DC Office Director
Environment America