Coloradans may be worried about public debt and the burden of government on the economy. They may be anxious about their jobs and their long-term financial security. And U.S. companies may meanwhile be “holding more cash in the bank than at any point on record,” according to The Wall Street Journal, because of fears over another recessionary dip.
No matter. Our two U.S. senators, bless their buoyant hearts, apparently believe that the private sector can withstand a lot more uncertainty and stress. So Michael Bennet and Mark Udall voted the other day to protect what is likely to become the most costly, comprehensive regulatory initiative in history.
They gave their blessing to the Environmental Protection Agency’s intention to set climate policy for the nation, with no input from Congress, which happens to exist in order to rule on such momentous matters.
By the time the EPA is through, it is likely to impose new regulations not only on such major emitters of greenhouse gases as utilities but also on millions of small businesses, apartment buildings, hotels, schools and farms. The agency will have little choice given the path it has chosen.
Last December it issued an official finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare under the Clean Air Act, and now that law’s extraordinary provisions kick in. They require permits for any facility that emits 100 tons of pollutants per year — which is a decent threshold, say, for chemicals that cause ozone but a low threshold for carbon dioxide.
Enter the so-called Murkowski Resolution, which basically would have vetoed the EPA ruling and put the authority for climate policy back in the hands of Congress where it belongs. Yet 53 senators, including Bennet and Udall, voted it down.
Bennet issued a peculiar statement in which he acknowledged the primacy of Congress — “The best way to limit carbon pollution is for Congress to pass a comprehensive climate and energy bill” — but went on to allege that the “resolution would leave the government powerless to move forward, even if Congress doesn’t act.”
In short, Congress should act, but if it doesn’t then Bennet wants to have his way through bureaucratic fiat. The senator also said the resolution “would gut the Clean Air Act.”
Yet how would the assertion of congressional authority to regulate an area of air quality that has never been addressed before “gut” that act? To the contrary, the Clean Air Act is far more likely to be discredited by the EPA’s attempt to use it to address greenhouse emissions.
Why? Because Congress never contemplated that law covering anything as common as greenhouse emissions. And if the EPA followed the act to the letter, it would wreak havoc on the economy, as the agency admits. Permits alone would cost tens of thousands of dollars each. So the agency has basically decided to rewrite the act on its own.
In a “tailoring rule,” the agency said it would exclude smaller sources from permitting requirements until at least 2016 because to do otherwise would impose “undue costs” on them.
However, as the Legal Times’ blog pointed out, “The key question is whether the agency has the authority to make such a change to the statute.” Is the law simply whatever the EPA says?
Activists will seek to force the EPA to speed up the timetable for cracking down on the millions of smaller- scale carbon emitters. If they succeed, the compliance costs will be horrendous. If they fail, it’s probably still only a matter of time before this federal bureaucracy ends up micromanaging carbon emissions across the full economy, without any direction from our elected representatives.
And that, incredibly, is just fine with Colorado’s senators.
E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@denverpost.com.
