courtesy universetoday.com

Today, attempts to rollback parts of the Clean Air Act that direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address carbon pollution failed in the Senate.

In a game of political hide-and-seek, varying polluter interests attempted to highjack a bill (S. 493) that reauthorizes two small business innovation and technology research programs.

It was a stealthy attempt to amend the bill to prevent the EPA from limiting the vast amount of carbon pollution spewing everyday from our power plants, oil refineries, and factories.

Instead of a polluter payday, however, the attempted highjacking exposed confusion among the varying interests targeting the Clean Air Act and showed that navigating how to limit air pollution is a job best left to the experts at the EPA.

The four failed votes put a spotlight on the separate special interests seeking their own particular version of a rollback.

1. An amendment offered by Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (Amendment 183) was supported by the oil industry because it would allow their refineries to continue to spew unlimited carbon pollution. It failed to get the needed 60 votes (a vote of  50 to 50) despite the oil industry’s campaign contributions, led by Koch Industries and Exxon-Mobil, totaling nearly $28M in 2010.  At $560,000 a vote, this was one expensive failure for Big Oil. See how your Senators voted here.
2. A separate amendment offered by Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) (Amendment 215) was a two-year “stop work” order on the EPA’s carbon control efforts and supported by his home-state coal companies.  It failed 12 to 88.    In the 2010, campaign contributions from the coal industry topped $7.3M with Senator Rockefeller’s co-sponsor and West Virginian colleague Senator Manchin (D-WV) by far topping the list. In coughing up over $608,000 a vote, Dirty Coal fared even worse than Big Oil. See how your Senators voted here.
3. Another amendment offered by Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) (Amendment 277) that sought a more nuanced form of a 2-year delay on EPA’s enforcement of carbon limits designed to help manufacturers also failed 7 to 93.  The substance of this rollback amendment was not even enough to placate the National Association of Manufactures and their $8.5M in 2010 lobbying expenditures. See how your Senators voted here.
4. Finally, an amendment offered by Senator Baucus (D-MT) (Amendment 236) trying to navigate the EPA’s use of the Clean Air Act on agricultural facilities failed 7 to 93.  This loophole amendment still couldn’t garner the support of the American Farm Bureau Federation, political contributor of nearly $700K in the 2010 election cycle.  The Farm Bureau joined with the Koch Brother’s Americans for Prosperity to seek an even broader attack on the EPA’s ability to limit carbon pollution. See how your Senators voted here.

Simultaneously, the Senate’s polluter compatriots in the House continued their own assault on the Clean Air Act.  Picking up where they left off in using the budget battle to gut EPA (see my previous blog here),  the House is poised to pass Congressman Upton’s H.R. 910 later tonight - a bill that even overturns the scientific finding that carbon pollution causes climate change.

As these special interest measures collided on the Senate floor and the House legislated away a scientific consensus, the public continued to look on with disgust.  A recent poll confirms that 77 percent of Americans, including 61 percent of Republicans, believe that “Congress should let the EPA do its job.” Only 18 percent believe that “Congress should block the EPA from updating pollution standards.

Luckily, 34 senators have actually chosen to stand up for the majority of Americans.  They have introduced a resolution (S. Res 119) supporting the economic, environmental, and public health benefits of the Clean Air Act.  And more than 150 House members took a similar stand in a letter released this week.

These numbers ensure that if the polluter dollars somehow are successful in an attempt to roll the Clean Air Act on either another bill or during the upcoming budget battles a Presidential veto of their dirty work would be upheld.

US Capitol with its power plant in foreground (via Flickr's Matthew Hurst)

Take Action! Call your Senators today.

It must have sounded like a reasonable idea when polluters first pressed the newly elected Congress to come to their aid.  I suppose it sounded something like this:

Congress shouldn’t leave the implementation of the Clean Air Act to the Environmental Protection Agency.  After all, the Environmental Protection Agency’s mission of protecting public health and the environment is inconvenient because we may have to invest in cleaner technologies. By the way, don’t forget the one billion dollars — yes, billion with a “b” — we spent in the last 2 years on campaign contributions and lobbying.  Beating up on EPA will make good political theater — the kids back home will love it.

Political theater has now become a messy political spectacle in the Senate that shows why Congress should stick to legislation and why our Constitution vests in the president the responsibility to ensure that laws such as the Clean Air Act are “faithfully executed.”  Polluters are in such a rush to hamstring the Environmental Protection Agency that they couldn’t bother with hearings and a full debate.  Instead, they want to add their ideas to any legislation that already has bipartisan support and is moving — in this case, the Small Business bill currently being acted on in the Senate.

Senators today will choose whether to let the Environmental Protection Agency do its job. Alternatively, they can take up the cause of special interests by voting for the amendment to block EPA from fully implementing the Clean Air Act and addressing carbon pollution from smokestacks and tailpipes.  Did I say “the amendment?”  Oops.  That would be four different amendments to interfere with EPA in different ways. Looks like with all the different interests that have a stake in how the Clean Air Act is implemented — oil companies, coal companies, manufacturers, the Farm Bureau — it’s not so simple for Congress to take over the regulatory process itself.

Oil companies, which can currently spew unlimited amounts of carbon pollution from their refineries, went to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican from Kentucky, and asked him to advance a plan that would get straight to the heart of the matter — an amendment that would erases science and essentially declare that climate change isn’t happening.  If climate change doesn’t exist, it’s not a threat to public health or wildlife, and EPA can’t require big polluters to reduce emissions.

I know Congress generates alot of hot air, but I didn’t know they could change the laws of physics and chemistry with a good old fashioned federal proclamation:

• Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) is advancing his own plan to help his home-state coal industry.  His amendment would issue a “stop work” order for EPA for two  years.  Coal companies know that once passed, “temporary” stop work orders easily become perpetual, as happened for more than a decade as auto makers successfully blocked efforts to improve fuel economy standards with the same delays added to bills year after year.
• Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) continues to work on a more nuanced amendment that also has some form of a 2-year delay as she tries to figure out how to help manufacturers.
• Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) has his own formula for steering EPA, with a particular emphasis on agricultural interests.

While these special interest measures collide on the Senate floor, constituents back home are looking at all of them with disgust.  Voters didn’t go to the polls last year worried that our air is too clean or our water too safe to drink. To the contrary, a recent poll confirms that 77% of Americans, including 61% of Republicans, believe that “Congress should let the EPA do its job.” Only 18% believe that “Congress should block the EPA from updating pollution safeguards.” There has already been a backlash against similar polluter-backed efforts in the House.

As they witness the mess polluters have created for them, perhaps Congress will now have a little more respect for EPA’s 40-year track record of carefully studying issues, weighing all the evidence, and issuing prudent regulations that have dramatically reduced air pollution while promoting economic growth.  Over the past forty years, since the Clean Air Act was enacted and subsequently amended with overwhelming bipartisan support, EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act has spurred $2 trillion in annual economic benefits, largely by stopping lung disease and other health threats before they happen.  The benefits have outweighed the costs of installing cleaner technologies by more than 30 to 1.

I am hopeful that enough Senators will look at this mess and vote to let EPA do its job that each of these measures will fail today. But polluters aren’t done, and Big Oil has alot more money to spend on campaign cash and lobbying.  So we must all keep up the fight and let Congress know we are watching.  And we need the help of President Obama, who has been disappointingly silent on these attacks.

Call your Senators today and tell them to let the Environmental Protection Agency do its job.

Smog chokes Houston. Dirty air isn't stopping polluters from going on the attack. Image from ENS-Newswire.

Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), along with seven other Senators, introduced a bill that would block limits on carbon pollution and undermine landmark laws like the Clean Air Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.

At the same time, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) introduced a bill to delay, for two years, Environmental Protection Agency limits on carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other stationary sources under the Clean Air Act.  Coal-fired power plants are the largest single source of global warming pollution in the U.S.

NWF global warming policy director, Joe Mendelson, was not pleased. He was quoted in the New York Times green blog saying it would “create a parade of polluter loopholes allowing for unlimited carbon pollution. Americans don’t want Congress undermining E.P.A.’s work on new clean vehicle standards and cleaning up dirty smokestacks.”

You can help.  Take action now to protect people and wildlife by keeping a strong Clean Air Act.