The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sat on the sidelines for eight long years as George Bush allowed climate change to proceed unchecked. When Barack Obama was elected, everything changed.
On April 24, 2009, the Obama EPA announced its intention to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. That announcement started the clock ticking on a mandatory 60-day comment period before greenhouse gas regulation can begin.
On June 24, 2009, the Obama EPA has the potential to become a powerful tool in the fight against catastrophic climate change. That is, unless big coal gets its way.
Hundreds of lobbyists have been slithering through the halls of Congress for the last several weeks, working their magic on ACES. If the lobbyists get their way, the bill will have holes large enough to drive dozens of new dirty, CO2 belching, coal-fired power plants through.
Unbelievably, ACES actually tells the EPA that it cannot do its job by regulating greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants. What sense does it make to weaken the EPA in a bill designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions? Yet that is exactly what ACES does.
Who knows, maybe it has something to do with all those coal lobbyists.
Both houses of Congress and the President need to start hearing from people about the actual harms that ACES will do to the climate. We won't be able to get everything we want from a climate bill, but at least we ought to be able to keep it from making things worse. Keeping the EPA strong enough to regulate CO2 from coal-fired power plants is a good place to start.
