A bipartisan trio of House members announced yesterday that they are sponsoring a bill to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases. Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Missouri Reps. Ike Skelton (D) and Jo Ann Emerson (R) introduced the measure.
Efforts to bar the agency from following through on their determination that planet-warming emissions threaten human health are already underway in the Senate, as we’ve reported, and Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.) has also introduced legislation on the subject in the House.
“I have no confidence that the EPA can regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act without doing serious damage to our economy,” Peterson said on Tuesday. “Americans know we’re way too dependent on foreign oil and fossil fuels in this country–and I’ve worked hard to develop practical solutions to that problem–but Congress should be making these types of decisions, not unelected bureaucrats at the EPA.”
Now, Peterson, it should be noted, did vote for the House climate and energy bill last year, but only after holding the bill hostage until he could wring as much out of it for Big Ag. And after getting what he wanted, he now says he would vote against the bill if it came back to the House. So his seriousness about imposing greenhouse-gas regulations through Congress is questionable.
Skelton did vote for the House bill, while Emerson did not. But Skelton now seems to be backing off of a cap, telling ClimateWire that Congress should put aside the cap-and-trade measure and move an energy-only bill.”Let us set that bill aside and pass this scaled-back energy legislation,” he said.
Their bill would not only bar the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, but it would also restrict the agency from calculating land-use changes in other countries in biofuel policies and broaden the definition of renewable biomass.
