The New Storm Brewing On the Climate Front

With the cap and trade bill stalled, its foes move to block the Environmental Protection Agency from tackling greenhouse gases.

— By Kate Sheppard

Fri Jan. 15, 2010 2:59 AM PST

The cap-and-trade bill may have stalled in Congress, but its opponents aren't taking it easy. They’ve launched a new assault on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—hoping to neutralize the only legal weapon the Obama administration has to curb carbon emissions if the climate legislation fails.

Last month the EPA determined that greenhouse gases are a threat to human health, meaning that the agency is now required by the Clean Air Act to regulate such pollutants. And with no-one sure when the Senate will take up the cap-and-trade bill, EPA regulation has become a do-or-die issue for both camps in the climate fight. Advocates of climate action see it as the lone tool—albeit an imperfect one—that the Obama administration can use to implement significant emissions reductions in the absence of legislation. Foes, meanwhile, decry it as a back-door maneuver that must be stopped at all costs.