Obama v. Rockefeller on EPA carbon regulations, Daily Kos, July 29, 2010, by Joan McCarter, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

While the energy bill won’t do much in the way of carbon regulation, the EPA still can. That is, if coal state Senators can be stopped.

Via David Dayen, earlier this week the White House vowed to veto legislation that would block the EPA from writing new climate change rules.

Coal-state Democrats, led by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (W. Va.), Reps. Rick Boucher (Va.) and Nick Rahall (W. Va), are trying to limit the federal government’s ability to control greenhouse gases from power plants.

The coal-state proposals, which would block the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority for two years, would undercut what is widely seen as Obama’s alternative climate policy, now that Congress has punted on cap-and-trade legislation for the year. The Obama aide said the proposals won’t win the president’s signature if they managed to pass on Capitol Hill. Rockefeller’s bill is expected to reach the Senate floor at some point this year.

Back in 2007, a Supreme Court ruling mandated that the EPA regulate greenhouse gasses, and the administration is determined to follow that law.

And Jay Rockefeller is determined to try to stop it, possibly by attempting to amend the energy bill on the floor next week. One way to circumvent him, without forcing a veto of the entire bill, would be for Reid to refuse amendments to the bill, something he has indicated might happen.

Which would hamper efforts to strengthen the bill in other ways. One of the most popular proposals in committee was the Renewable Electricity Standard, which would mandate that utilities get a certain percentage of their power from renewables. There’s an effort afoot now to get this amendment allowed on the floor.

Meanwhile, Republicans have introduced an alternative bill, that would basically let BP off the hook by not applying a liability cap in it retroactively to apply to the Gulf spill.

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