Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson told a Senate panel yesterday her agency will ease greenhouse gas emissions regulations in the first few years of implementation, according to numerous reports.
Jackson said the agency will focus on stationary sources with emissions greater than 75,000 tons per year when regulations take effect in 2011.
Sources emitting between 50,000 and 75,000 tons would come under regulation in 2013 and smaller sources won’t be affected until at least 2016.
The EPA rule proposed last fall calls for regulating all sources greater than 25,000 tons. But Jackson wrote in a letter to the Senate last week that the Agency was considering "raising that threshold substantially to reflect input provided during the public comment process."
Under the rule, emitters would be required to use "best available" technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emisions.
Republicans and some Democrats in Congress want to block the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. The US Chamber of Commerce and the state of Texas have appealed to federal courts to stop regulation.
The Obama administration said it would only resort to EPA regulations if Congress failed to enact climate change legislation.
A Dow Jones report suggests the EPA’s greenhouse-gas rules could make "innocent bystanders" of wind and solar projects. Read that story at the link below.
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