With the consequences of heavy reliance on oil so visible in the Gulf of Mexico, it would seem sensible that the Senate would readily reject a proposal by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases spewed by industry and utilities and by requiring stiffer mileage standards.
But in the U.S. Senate, where oil and energy industry lobbyists contribute heavily to political campaigns and wield huge influence, common sense about public policy can be hard to achieve. Indeed, had Sen. Murkowski’s industry-friendly attempt to restrain the authority of the EPA been subject to the usual Senate filibuster rules, her resolution of disapproval of new EPA rules related to greenhouse gas emissions would have been approved.
But though six Democrats joined the solid Republican bloc (which included Tennessee Senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander) in support of Sen. Murkowski’s usual resolution Thursday, the Senate mustered enough Democratic votes to defeat the resolution, 53-47.
That vote will let the EPA go forward with rules to regulate six greenhouses, including carbon. That’s a major victory for environmental improvement. It also will allow a significant U.S. contribution, at last, to global mitigation of greenhouse gases responsible for climate change.
Republican disapproval made little sense. The U.S. Supreme had already ruled that the EPA had authority, under the Clean Air Act, to regulate greenhouse gases which had been found to pose a threat to public health. That, indeed, is what the EPA was created to do: protect the public from man-made environmental hazards injurious to public health and safety.
Republicans wrongly labeled the EPA’s action part of a “back-door” ploy by the Obama administration to impose a “national energy tax.” In fact, allowing utilities and auto makers to impose unnecessary pollution, and its health-care and environmental costs, on citizens and the public sector has constituted a front-door GOP policy of approval for industrial assault on public health.
Utilities like TVA, industry and auto makers have long transferred their pollution costs to the public by not cleaning up their pollution themselves. Requiring them to do so, at last, is eminently sensible. And it’s about time it was done.