It was largely looked forward to and now it’s largely disappointing; The Environmental Protection Agency was to divulge its direction this week on how power plants and refiners will be forced to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, beyond cap and trade and other propositions.
Sadly though there was an inter-agency collapse on the line of attack.
The EPA policy arrived at the White House Office of Management and Budget one month ago but has been neglected to collect desk dust.
While Federal clean air laws permit local and state officials to count cost in determining emission slashes, there has never been a de facto cost cap by the federal government.
Industry officials, feet-draggers really, are suing the EPA that such new climate legislation will wreck their businesses.
Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker offered this possible explanation for Obama America’s sluggish progress in the climate Olympics:
“There are a couple of large trends that have made the task of solving this crisis more difficult. One of them is the Great Recession. And even though the solutions to the climate crisis actually offer great opportunities for building sustainable growth and reinvigorating the prospects for better living standards—both in the developed and developing countries—the forces wedded to the old patterns still have enough influence that they were able to use the fear of the economic downturn as a way of slowing the progress toward this big transition that we have to make.”
Slated to start for January 2nd, it will be compulsory for regulated sources to implement pollution controls so to win permits from local and state regulators.
The deal will spur energy efficiency requirements instead of forced fuel switching, carbon capture and storage.