The EPA issues greenhouse gas rules
The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday issued a final rule that requires power plants, oil refineries, and other large stationary sources of greenhouse gases to obtain permits that specify what technologies they will use to curb these emissions.
The rule has been in the works for a while, but its issuance is a timely reminder that the EPA will regulate greenhouse gases if Congress fails to do so. On Wednesday, Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, one of the Senate's two independent members, unveiled their long-awaited America Power Act. The measure would cap carbon emissions in the utility, manufacturing, and transportation sectors.
“Today we went from ‘wake-up call’ to ‘last call’ on the urgency of Senate action on comprehensive energy and climate legislation,” Kerry said, concerning the EPA rule.
“Those who have spent years stalling need to understand: Killing a Senate bill is no longer success. And if Congress won’t legislate a solution, the EPA will regulate one, and it will come without the help to America’s consumers and businesses contained in the America Power Act,” he said.
The EPA’s new rules will cover 70 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions from stationary sources, while exempting smaller sources such as commercial buildings, apartment complexes, restaurants, and farms. Many of these smaller sources would have been subject to the permitting requirements under the EPA’s original proposal.
The purpose of the rule is to ensure that the best available technologies are used to minimize greenhouse gases when large facilities that emit pollutants such as carbon dioxide are constructed or expanded.
Beginning January 2, 2011, projects that already are required to get Clean Air Act permits for other types of pollutants also will have to get permits for greenhouse gases if new construction or expansions increase the amount of these emissions by anything over 75,000 tons per year.
That’s up from a threshold of 25,000 tons per year in the EPA’s original proposal.
Read the full story in Portfolio.com.
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