Recent U.S. Actions on Greenhouse Gas Regulations
by Michael W. Evans (Washington, DC), Cliff L. Rothenstein (Washington, DC) and Cindy L. O'Malley (Washington, DC).
This article is an excerpt from K&L Gates' Global Government Solutions 2011 Annual Outlook, which contains informative articles on some of the most consequential government developments that we anticipate in 2011 across a range of substantive areas.
Efforts in the United States to regulate greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions date back to 1998, when the former general counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) concluded that GHG emissions were pollutants under the Clean Air Act and could be regulated. A year later, a group of organizations petitioned EPA to regulate GHG emissions from new motor vehicles. In 2003, EPA denied the petition, which was challenged by Massachusetts, among others, in litigation that ultimately was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the EPA had the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate GHG emissions. In 2009, the EPA issued an “endangerment finding” under the Clean Air Act that GHG emissions from new motor vehicles may endanger public health or welfare. This finding required EPA to issue GHG emissions standards for light-duty motor vehicles, and it also triggered the need for other regulations, including GHG permitting standards, the installation of best Available Control Technology (“BACT”) for controlling GHG from new or modified stationary sources, and New Source Performance Standards (“NSPS”) for GHG emissions.
As the 112th Congress kicks off and the new House majority is set to begin intensive oversight of EPA rules, EPA recently took two significant actions that will affect the schedule for issuing GHG regulations...
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