Heated but hollow

Congress embarks on a rhetorical debate about greenhouse gases

Feb 10th 2011 | WASHINGTON, DC | from PRINT EDITION

Grilling Ms Jackson

WHILE campaigning to become chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee of the House of Representatives, Fred Upton, a Republican from Michigan, vowed that he would grill Lisa Jackson, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in front of his committee so often that she would need her own parking space on Capitol Hill. On February 9th Ms Jackson submitted to her first interrogation, about one of the Republican Party’s pet peeves: the EPA’s plan to restrict emissions of greenhouse gases from cars and factories by decree.

That plan has been a long time in the making. During the administration of George Bush junior several states, frustrated by the administration’s refusal to address global warming, sued the EPA. They argued that it was required to use its powers under the Clean Air Act, a law from the 1960s aimed first at smog and later acid rain, to declare carbon dioxide a threat to the environment and public health and regulate it accordingly. The case eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, which decided in 2007 that the EPA did indeed have the authority to do this. But the Bush administration, which maintained that restrictions on emissions would raise the price of energy and so hurt the economy while doing little to help the climate, managed to prevaricate for almost two years before passing the buck to Barack Obama and Ms Jackson.

Mr Obama had said repeatedly during his presidential campaign that it would be preferable for Congress to regulate greenhouse gases, but that if it failed to act, the EPA should not shirk its responsibilities. So even as Congress debated how to handle global warming in 2009 and 2010, the EPA began drawing up regulations of its own. Last year it issued new emissions standards for cars, and set out a timetable for rules on large stationary sources such as cement plants and refineries. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ proposed law curbing emissions, which had juddered through the House but stalled in the Senate, came to a complete halt when the Republicans took control of the House in November.

Congress is now considering several bills that would strip the EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases. Mr Upton is the author of one such effort, which he has bluntly entitled “The Energy Tax Prevention Act”. He, like many of his Republican colleagues, is sceptical about the connection between human activity and global warming, and adamantly opposed to increasing the regulatory burden on businesses when the economy is so weak.

Some Democrats, too, conscious of the electoral hay Republicans made of votes for “job-killing energy taxes”, are keen to distance themselves from the EPA’s efforts. Jay Rockefeller, a Democratic senator from West Virginia, has introduced a bill that would suspend the EPA’s regulatory drive for two years—a step that would in theory give Congress more time to come up with regulations of its own. In practice, given the Republicans’ reluctance to regulate emissions at all, it would simply delay any embarrassing headlines until after next year’s elections.

Bills like Mr Upton’s seem almost certain to fall foul of the Democratic majority in the Senate. Moreover, Mr Obama has said he will veto any bill that hobbles the EPA. Mr Rockefeller’s bill, in contrast, may get enough Democratic support to get through the Senate, should the Republicans back it too. But that is far from assured. The Republicans are enjoying beating the Democrats over the head with the subject—witness Mr Upton’s eagerness to cross-examine Ms Jackson—and would not want to give them any let-outs. And they are keen to play to their own base with displays of unflinching opposition to government meddling. Congress’s intention in discussing global warming is no longer legislating, but electioneering.