The EPA Regulatory Hammer and the Path Ahead

With climate legislation dead in the current Congress, the EPA under Administrator Lisa Jackson has become the central force in implementing the Obama Administration's agenda on climate change.  At the same time, members of Congress and interest groups are focused on preventing the EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases, and are making their case on both Capitol Hill and in the courts.  Even if some of the challenges are successful, the EPA is set to unleash a wave of new regulations that, while they have received less fanfare than the greenhouse gas rules, could have just as wide-ranging an impact on carbon-intensive sectors of the economy, such as coal-fired electricity and cement production.  Taken together, the new regulations suggest that the Obama Administration's climate policy is shaping up to be more complicated than what it had originally hoped for.  In addition, basic questions remain unanswered regarding the ambitious timetable for these regulations and the capacity of the EPA to effectively carry them out in a timely and effective manner.  GR’s Energy and Climate Brief assesses the coming rounds of EPA regulation and assesses the political and legal fallout from the forthcoming regulations as well as the various challenges to them.

Why is the EPA now Leading on Regulations?
The current trend toward an EPA-led, regulation-driven climate agenda is the result of three developments during the course of 2010.  First, partisan gridlock in the Senate, combined with the now-routine use of the filibuster requiring a supermajority to pass legislation, has prevented any sort of climate or energy bill from being voted on this year; this dynamic will grow stronger following the midterm elections in November, when Republicans are expected to make gains in both chambers of Congress. 

Full article here.