BIOMASS HUB

The Hill reports that Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) threw her support behind Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s (D-WV) bill to block EPA regulation of GHG emissions from industrial facilities for two years – a plan that’s less sweeping than a proposal Murkowski is pushing.

Rockefeller, a strong ally of coal producers, asserts that his plan would provide Congress the time needed to complete work on climate legislation.  He called his plan:

An important action to safeguard jobs, the coal industry, and the entire economy as we move toward clean coal technology.  This legislation will issue a two year suspension on EPA regulation of greenhouse gases from stationary sources—giving Congress the time it needs to address an issue as complicated and expansive as our energy future.  Congress, not the EPA, must be the ideal decision-maker on such a challenging issue.

Murkowski – who has 40 cosponsors for her competing plan – supports Rockefeller’s bill but said she’s keeping her own plan at the ready if it doesn’t advance.

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) isn’t backing colleague Jay Rockefeller’s (D-WV) new bill to force a two-year timeout before EPA can implement rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other industrial facilities.

I do not plan to cosponsor Senator Rockefeller’s legislation at this time.  I was encouraged by the response last week from EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to a letter that I signed along with other Senators that would delay into next year the application of stronger standards regarding increased efficiency or reduced pollution at large power plants and factories. Following up on my previous conversations with her in my office, I take her at her word.