UPDATE:EPA Aims To Release Greenhouse-Gas Rule By End Of April
April 06 2010 - 5:09PM
Dow Jones News
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is aiming to publish by
the end of April its "tailoring rule" outlining which power plants
and other sources of greenhouse-gas emissions will be regulated, an
EPA official said Tuesday.
Emitters such as refineries, the oil industry, steel smelters,
cement and brick kilns, and chemical plants are carefully watching
how and when the EPA will regulate greenhouse-gas emissions.
"We expect the rule to be done very shortly, hopefully by the
end of the month," Assistant Administrator Regina McCarthy said,
but added that it may be pushed into May given the complexity of
the rule.
Industry officials say uncertainty and concerns about the new
regulations--how stringent and flexible they will be--are curbing
energy development and clouding future investments in emitting
sectors.
McCarthy said the rule "will take some of the fear away about
what permitting requirements" are going to be.
Many industry groups warn that regulating greenhouse gases under
the Clean Air Act--as the EPA is doing--could harm the economy and
create a cascade of litigation.
Although the agency has yet to publish an economic analysis of
its greenhouse-gas proposals, the EPA is fighting the perception
that Clean Air Act regulations will be burdensome.
"We're going to do it in a way that's first and foremost
sensible," but also, "sensitive to economic concerns," McCarthy
said. "We want to do it in a way that's deliberate, that's phased,
that allows innovation to happen," she said.
The new rule won't come into force before January 2011, and then
at first for only the largest emitters, such as coal-fired power
plants. Other emitters will be phased in over time.
McCarthy said the agency wasn't going to require new
technologies that hadn't been proven.
"The rules...look at moving forward already demonstrated
technologies, not innovative technologies that have yet to be
properly demonstrated," she said. For example, McCarthy said the
rules "will not require carbon capture and storage at every
facility."
One of the recommendations the EPA's likely to make for
compliance with emission reductions is energy efficiency, she said.
"To the extent to which we can guide companies to look at making
investments that save their bottom line in a way that achieves
their reduction goals, that's what we want to do," said
McCarthy.
-By Ian Talley, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9285;
ian.talley@dowjones.com