WILL EPA DO ITS OWN CAP&TRADE?

EPA Studying Own Carbon-Trading System, Official Says
Simon Lomax (w/Richard Stubbe and Charlotte Porter), March 15, 2010 (Bloomberg News via BusinessWeek)

"The Obama administration is considering a carbon-trading system under existing law if Congress doesn’t pass cap-and-trade legislation that allows companies to buy and sell the right to pollute…

"The existing Clean Air Act [might put a Cap&Trade system] within agency regulations aimed at reducing carbon dioxide and other gases that scientists have linked to climate change, Anna Marie Wood, a senior policy analyst at the EPA, said…"

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"…[EPA] strongly prefers…[however, that] Congress pass new laws dealing with greenhouse gases…[though the Agency believes the Clean Air Act gives it effective tools]…"

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"EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said last week the agency has no plans to independently set up a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases. Jackson said she believed Congress will establish a national program. Cap-and-trade legislation that narrowly passed the House last year is stalled in the Senate.

"Emissions trading for greenhouse gases might be set up under part of the Clean Air Act that lets the agency set “new source performance standards” for large polluters such as power plants, oil refineries and cement plants, Wood said."