Timing is Everything: EPA Delays CO2 Regulations
Nicolas Loris /
Let’s wait until the economy recovers a little before we step on it with costly environmental regulations. That was the message from Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson in a response to eight Democratic senators from industrial coal states the authority of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. Administrator Jackson said by April she will “take actions to ensure that no stationary source will be required to get a Clean Air Act permit to cover its greenhouse gas emissions in calendar year 2010.”
As the Clean Air Act is currently written, the EPA could regulate sources or establishments that emit 100 or 250 tons or more of a pollutant per year. The EPA is proposing a “tailoring rule” that would amend the CAA so that only entities that emit 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year would be affected. But even the 25,000 ton threshold is subject to change said Jackson: “I expect the threshold for permitting will be substantially higher than the 25,000-ton limit that EPA originally proposed.” These regulations for the largest of emitters are expected to take place between the latter half of 2011 and 2013.