EPA memo bans to curb CO2 emissions

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The Bush administration is trying to make sure in its final days that federal air pollution regulations will not be used to control the gases blamed for global warming.

In a memorandum sent Thursday, outgoing Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson set an agencywide policy prohibiting controls on carbon dioxide emissions from being included in air pollution permits for coal-fired power plants and other facilities.

The decision could give the agency a legal basis for issuing permits that increase global warming pollution until the incoming Obama administration can change it, a process that would require a lengthy rule-making process.

“The current concerns over global climate change should not drive EPA into adopting an unworkable policy of requiring emissions controls,” Johnson wrote. And while the administrator acknowledged public interest in the issue, he wrote: “Administrative agencies are authorized to issue interpretations of this nature that clarify their regulations without completing a public comment process.”

The White House has repeatedly said that the Clean Air Act should not be used to regulate carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases, even though an April 2007 Supreme Court decision determined that the EPA could do so under the law.

The Thursday memo from Johnson was an attempt to clarify the agency’s position after an appeals board in November rejected a federal permit for a Utah power plant, putting the fate of scores of coal-burning power plants and other industrial facilities in limbo.

In that case, the judges said the EPA did not make a strong enough case for not requiring controls on carbon dioxide, the leading pollutant linked to global warming. Environmentalists had challenged the permit saying that law makes clear that greenhouse gas emissions can be controlled.

By Dina Cappielo, Associated Press