Environment and Natural Resources Committee

 

SENATE PICTURE ON CLEAR SKIES NOT CLEARER

The 109^th Congress has been quick to begin action on a number of key proposals including Clear Skies, the legislative package of amendments to the Clean Air Act.  The Clear Skies legislation has become the primary vehicle for implementing the President’s proposed changes to the rules regulating power plant emissions with the final publication of the Clean Air Interstate (CAIR) Rule postponed to March 15, 2005 at the earliest.  Determined to get to a committee markup by mid-February, a Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee held an opening hearing on S. 131 (Sen. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma) on January 26.

S. 131, Clear Skies Act of 2005, seeks to reduce sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury emissions from power plants by 70 percent by 2018 through a cap and trade program.  The committee deadlocked on the legislation in the 108^th Congress as competing bills (Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vermont and Tom Carper, D-Delaware) sought greater and more expeditious emission reductions and targeted carbon dioxide in addition to the other three pollutants.  Those old divisions resurfaced during the hearing although Sens. Carper and George Voinovich (R-Ohio), the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Clean Air, Wetlands, and Climate Change Subcommittee, expressed a desire to reach consensus. 

NCSL has urged protection of state authority to exceed federal emission reduction standards, preservation of state enforcement authority under the Clean Air Act and protection of state single or multi-pollutant enactments from being compromised by federal legislation.  Indiana State Senator Beverly Gard testified on her own behalf at the January 26 hearing.  Testimony from the hearing is available on-line at: http://epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=230941. A full committee hearing on February 2 is next.

WHITE HOUSE ANNOUNCES ACTING ADMINISTRATOR FOR EPA

Stephen Johnson will serve as the Acting Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency per a White House announcement on January 26. On the same day, Michael Leavitt was confirmed as the new Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, prompting his departure from EPA. Mr. Johnson is a 24-year EPA veteran with much of his previous experience in the Office of Pesticides Programs.