Word: acting
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...there is a Plan B. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases like CO2 could be considered pollutants and gave the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the power to regulate them under the Clean Air Act. Although that authority went unused in the waning days of former President George W. Bush's Administration, the Obama EPA has spent much of the past year preparing the groundwork for regulation. In the absence of a climate bill, the EPA has the power - and is legally mandated by the Supreme Court - to step in and address carbon emissions. (See pictures...
...President Obama have emphasized many times that they would prefer that Congress take the lead on climate change; many assumed that the mere threat of the EPA's regulatory authority would goad Congress into action. Now the question is, If the Senate won't move, can the EPA act effectively...
...clear exactly how the EPA will regulate carbon. Regulations would call for new plants to take on the "best available technologies" to control carbon emissions, but the EPA hasn't specified what those technologies are. Already-built sources of emissions could be even tougher to regulate - the Clean Air Act grandfathered in existing coal plants. And the agency is already facing lawsuits from the state of Texas and from industry groups that seek to prevent the EPA from issuing any regulations at all, arguing that the recent problems in climate science undermine the agency's original endangerment finding...
...House would much rather see Congress take the lead - and the political heat - on climate change. But the EPA's Jackson, at least, seems ready to fight. At the Senate hearing Tuesday morning, she tangled with Republican climate skeptics and emphasized that the Supreme Court required her agency to act. "The science behind climate change is settled, and human activity is responsible for global warming," she said. "That conclusion is not a partisan one." That's true, but just about everything else in Washington still...
...Philadelphians recognized that there was something special about their own history,” she said. “The power of the community to act together was affirmed...