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Murkowski Resolution

U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) – top ranking Republican member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee – introduced a “Disapproval Resolution” in the Senate on January 21 to prevent the U.S. EPA from regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

The Senate voted on the Murkowski Resolution on June 10. It failed by a vote of 47-53. Read our statement about the vote.

See how your Senators voted.

Background

Senator Murkowski introduced the Resolution because EPA issued a “finding” in December that leads to new EPA regulations to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories, and vehicles.

In addition, the EPA finding could also lead to regulations for many small facilities that emit very minor amounts of carbon dioxide.

When the new rules are fully implemented, EPA says that “many small sources would be burdened by the costs of [these] new requirements and ... State permitting authorities would be paralyzed ...” (See proposed Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule, Federal Register, October 27, 2009). EPA estimated that almost 6 million small facilities that would be subject to new regulations. These include private residences, hospitals, nursing homes, apartment buildings, and dry cleaners, to name a few. These facilities would be required to apply for air quality permits from EPA and state agencies in order to operate. In addition, if they expand their operations, they would be required to install new pollution controls.

Although EPA says that it wants to avoid these problems, many legal experts do not believe EPA can do that.

Even the Obama White House prefers that Congress take action to address climate change ( … White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on March 23, 2009, emphasized that “the president has made it quite clear” that he prefers to have the climate issue addressed by Congress as part of a broad, mandatory limit on heat-trapping emissions). However, EPA intends to proceed with new rules unless Congress passes the Murkowski Resolution.

America’s Power campaign supports a climate change strategy that advances environmental improvement, economic prosperity and energy security. We believe that carefully written federal legislation is one way to achieve these important goals. We believe piecemeal regulations are not the way to achieve these important goals.

Why is Congressional action better than EPA regulations?

Unless Congress passes the Murkowski Resolution, EPA will use the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The Clean Air Act was written by Congress years ago primarily to address local air pollution problems, such as smog, caused by power plants, large factories and vehicles ... not an international issue like global climate change that has far broader impacts.

Legislation carefully written by Congress would provide incentives to develop and deploy new technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions more effectively than a piecemeal regulatory approach and provide the flexibility to reduce emissions at the lowest cost. Flexibility is important because it helps prevent unnecessary cost increases for consumers.

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