So explains The Economist:
Over the past few days, America has moved towards a federal system for
regulating its carbon emissions in three ways. First, several big
companies have broken with trade associations that oppose the
cap-and-trade bill now in the Senate. Second, the bill has moved a
stage further towards becoming law. Third, and most important, the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that if Congress
won’t legislate to cut greenhouse gases, it will regulate anyway.[snip]
The proposed rules, which would take effect in 2011, will focus on
the country’s biggest power stations and require them to prove that
they have employed the best available technologies, or face penalties
for not doing so. According to Lisa Jackson, the EPA’s head, “We have
the tools and the technology to move forward today, and we are using
them.” The EPA will start with facilities emitting more than 25,000
tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. Ms Jackson maintains that she is not,
as her critics claim, going to regulate “every cow and Dunkin’ Donuts”.The administration has been holding the threat of EPA regulation
over Congress: if you don’t legislate, the message goes, we regulate.
Businesses by and large prefer the thought of a cap-and-trade system to
the idea of government regulators nosing around their plants and
telling them which technologies to use. The Chamber of Commerce and the
National Association of Manufacturers have threatened to sue the EPA if
it goes down this route. But the administration hopes matters will not
get to that point, and that the EPA’s announcement will help push the
Senate into passing a bill.The announcement has another purpose, too. The administration was
concerned that, if a bill were not passed before the climate conference
in Copenhagen in December, America would look bad and the chances of
getting a global agreement on cutting carbon emissions would be much
reduced. The administration can take the EPA’s intervention, along with
other measures such as new subsidies for renewable energy and tighter
car fuel-efficiency standards, and argue that they add up to a
substantial package of cuts. In short, America will now not have to go
naked into the conference chamber.
In union lingo, Obama now has "a hammer in his pocket."
Kit Stolz 