Industry, business groups urge senators to block EPA's greenhouse gas rules

A caucus of nearly two-dozen industry and business groups is urging senators to restrict funding for landmark and controversial Environmental Protection Agency limits on greenhouse gases. 

The groups — including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute, the National Manufacturers Association and the American Chemistry Council — are pushing top Republicans and potential swing-vote Democrats on the Appropriations Committee to block EPA actions in an upcoming lame-duck spending package. 

The groups want the EPA to be prevented from imposing greenhouse gas restrictions on power plants and other major stationary energy sources. The limits are set to begin on Jan. 2.

The EPA restrictions would impose “substantial costs and burdens on U.S. jobs and state resources while intruding on Congress’s important leadership role in developing energy policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” the 21 groups wrote in the letter to 10 senators.

Many of the groups made a similar request to the same set of senators to include a one-year ban in a continuing spending resolution that was approved in late September shortly before lawmakers left town for the elections. The ban was not included. 

The Senate is returning Nov. 13 for a post-election lame-duck session and will have to pass either a fiscal year 2011 omnibus spending package or another continuing spending resolution before the current one expires Dec. 3. 

“We recognize that the Senate and the House were under a strict timeline to pass a CR before the September 30, 2010 deadline, making it difficult to include amendments and additional provisions,” the groups wrote. “While keeping the government running is critical, lawmakers also need to make sure government funds are used in ways that advance economic recovery and environmental improvement. In that context, there is an urgent need to delay EPA’s implementation of the stationary source rules.”

The senators receiving the letter were Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Appropriations ranking member Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Democrats Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Tim Johnson (S.D.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mark Pryor (Ark.), Arlen Specter (Pa.) and Jon Tester (Mont.). 

Dorgan, Johnson, Landrieu, Nelson and Pryor have supported other efforts to either prevent or delay EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Brown and Specter are coal-state senators who industry groups hope could be swayed based upon the effect the EPA climate limits could have on the coal industry.