GOP may target Clean Air Act

WASHINGTON - Now that the House of Representatives has voted to repeal the health-care law, Republicans say they are likely to move soon to another target: a rewrite of the Clean Air Act so that it can't be used to fight climate change.

The Environmental Protection Agency in December said it would draw up performance standards that would help cut heat-trapping gases produced by refineries and coal-fired power plants. The EPA has not proposed the specifics yet, and existing plants would not be affected until the later years of the decade, but opponents of regulation aren't waiting.

The new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said he would hold hearings about the impact of the EPA's emission-reduction plan on jobs.

"Standing up for American workers and addressing EPA's rampant regulations is a top priority, said Rep. Fred Upton (R., Mich.). "We will be active and aggressive using every tool in the toolbox to protect American jobs and our economy by rolling back the job-destroying [greenhouse gas] regulations."

Like the health-care repeal, though, it is largely a symbolic effort since the Senate retains its Democratic majority and President Obama wields his veto pen.

The American climate debate has been focused on economic interests - whether actions to reduce fossil-fuel use would create or eliminate jobs. Meanwhile, an increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, driven mainly by fossil-fuel use, poses a rising risk of climate disruptions around the globe.

"There is an enormous failure, in my view, to see the ethical and moral dimensions of this issue," said Donald Brown, a professor of environmental ethics at Pennsylvania State University. "It's very difficult for people in the United States to see that self-interest is an important consideration, but we also have responsibilities to people in Africa."

Brown argues that farmers facing worsening drought in African countries are the first victims of a changing climate and that every year of delay in slashing U.S. emissions makes helping them harder.

Politicians give two reasons not to act to restrict emissions: It would cost too much, and there are uncertainties about what the exact effect of climate change will be.

Brown said that skirted a fundamental issue. "The economic argument has been used to scare people, without reflecting on rights and responsibilities," he said. And uncertainty "requires, ethically, that if the harm is big enough, that the burden of proof should shift to the person who wants to do the dangerous behavior, particularly in cases where if you wait until all the uncertainty is resolved, it's too late."

Politically, it's a tough sell. There aren't the votes in Congress for a broad cap-and-trade approach to cut emissions. Also, there is not much chance Congress this year will vote on other measures to bring emissions down.

Enter the Obama administration's EPA. On Dec. 23, the agency announced its intention to devise performance standards for power plants and refineries. The standards would apply only to new or upgraded facilities. Later in the decade, states would apply them to existing plants - and that's the industries' main worry.

Ever since the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the EPA had the authority to regulate greenhouses gases if they posed a danger to the public, some have criticized the prospect of government-set limits on carbon pollution from fossil fuels.

In a recent commentary, Upton and Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, an antiregulatory group that used a tour of a hot-air balloon to popularize its rejection of climate science, described the EPA's action as "an unconstitutional power grab that will kill millions of jobs."

If there aren't enough votes in Congress to overturn the EPA's proposed greenhouse-gas regulations, they would aim to delay the EPA action until court challenges about it are settled.

Upon and Phillips, who said they were "not convinced" that any greenhouse-gas regulation was needed, argued that "cuts in carbon emission would mean significantly higher electricity prices."

And that, they suggested, won't sit well with the public.