Senate rejects effort to block EPA greenhouse gas rules

Senate Democrats rejected a GOP-led effort Thursday to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

Sen. Lisa Murkowsk, R-Alaska, backs a proposal to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
CAPTIONBy Mark Wilson, Getty ImagesThe Senate voted 53-47 against a motion to proceed to a resolution by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, that would bar the EPA from issuing such climate-changing regulations under the Clean Air Act.

"We need to be growing our economy, not paralyzing it," Murkowski said on the Senate floor, warning that regulations could kill jobs and increase costs, reportsThe Hill.

Her resolution, supported by business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, also won the backing of six Democrats: Indiana's Evan Bayh, Louisiana's Mary Landrieu, Arkansas' Blanche Lambert Lincoln and Mark Pryor, Nebraska's Ben Nelson and West Virginia's Jay Rockefeller.

The White House threatened to veto the measure and environmental groups such as the Wilderness Society opposed it. They argue that the EPA has the power to regulate harmful carbon emissions.

Speaking for them was Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who's in a tough re-election battle with GOP candidate and former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. A recent Fiorina ad belittled Boxer's concern for climate change by calling it "the weather."

"Big oil backs the Murkowski resolution. So whose side are we on?" said Boxer as she displayed photos of birds covered with oil leaking from the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to The Hill. Boxer chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.


The American Public Health Association applauded the Senate's vote, saying current levels of the six key greenhouse gases cited by EPA pose significant public health threats, including increased likelihood of more frequent and intense heat waves and degraded air quality.

"Climate change is as much an environmental issue as it is a leading public health concern," said the group's executie Georges C. Benjamin, in a statement.


Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has indicated he wants a broad energy bill on the floor next month, but Democrats are struggling to craft one that will pass. Last month, Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., proposed a sweeping climate change bill, but it's yet to attract GOP support.

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