EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Interior and Environment that the agency was planning to require power plants and refineries to get permits to emit GHGs as of next year, the Dallas Morning News reported today. Jackson said the agency plans to establish at least a 75,000-ton annual threshold for applying its proposed GHG emissions rules to industrial emitters, Dow Jones Newswires reported. Jackson said EPA planned to wait "at least two years before we would look at something like, say, a 50,000 [ton] threshold" for regulation. The change from an initially planned threshold of 25,000 annual tons of emissions followed criticism from state regulators.
Meanwhile, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, criticized Jackson for maintaining that both EPA rules and legislation by Congress could coexist in restricting GHG emissions, Greenwire reported. Murkowski said statements by Jackson had failed to clarify whether she believed that "those of us that are elected by our constituents and accountable to them" should "enact and advance climate policy." In her testimony, Jackson stated: "Even legislation that's currently passed the House, that's the standard we have right now, envisions that EPA will have certain roles to play. And there is lots of regulatory work that the EPA can do that is entirely consistent with new legislation in the future."
