By Eric Miller, Staff Reporter This story appears in the March 21 print edition of Transport Topics.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved legislation that would strip the Environmental Protection Agency of some of its authority but would not block a proposal to regulate heavy- and medium-duty truck greenhouse gas emissions.
On March 15, the committee, by a 34-19 vote, passed the Energy Tax Prevention Act, which prohibits the agency from limiting carbon dioxide emissions by large stationary sources.
House Republican leaders said they hope to put the bill to a full vote before the Easter recess. However, the bill could face opposition from Senate Democrats, and President Obama has vowed to veto any legislation that would block EPA’s efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The bill also negates an “endangerment” finding by EPA that carbon emissions are harmful to public health. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 2007 case that if the EPA decides greenhouse gas emissions are harmful to the public, the agency could issue regulations.
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of the committee and a co-sponsor of the measure, said the bill would “protect jobs, prevent higher gas prices and stop reckless regulation.”
“Unless Congress intervenes, the EPA’s efforts to impose a cap-and-trade agenda threaten to drive gas prices even higher, increase utility rates, send manufacturing jobs overseas and hamstring our economic recovery,” Upton said in a statement.
Conversely, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) called the bill “extreme and excessive.”
“This bill would eliminate the EPA’s authority to require commonsense and cost-effective efficiency standards for the highest polluting facilities in the country,” Rush said in a statement.
Glen Kedzie, vice president and environmental affairs counsel for American Trucking Associations, confirmed to Transport Topics that the legislation would not prevent EPA from implementing the first truck fuel-efficiency and carbon-emissions standards.
The joint EPA and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposal, announced in October, would cut emissions from large trucks by 7% to 20% by 2017 — depending on the size of a truck and the way it is used, a departure from passenger fuel-economy regulations.
Franz Matzner, climate and air legislative director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement the committee’s approval of the bill “puts polluters ahead of the public and stops the EPA from protecting the health of every American.”
