The Obama Administration has issued a clear statement opposing the bill that would roll back the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce the Clean Air Act.  It really speaks for itself so I am just pasting it in below as well as providing a link.

The question for our Senators and Representatives is: will they reject this attack on the public health and the environment? They should stand firm against this bill and underhanded attempts to slip the  same provisions into other legislation, like the budget.

STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY

H.R. 910 – Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011

(Rep. Upton, R-MI, and 95 cosponsors)

The Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R. 910, which would halt the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) common-sense steps under the Clean Air Act (CAA) to protect Americans from harmful air pollution.  H.R. 910 would also increase the Nation’s dependence on oil and other fossil fuels as well as contradict the scientific consensus on climate change.

The CAA gives EPA the necessary tools to protect our families from a wide variety of harmful pollutants that cause asthma and lung disease – especially in children.  Weakening these standards would allow more pollution in the air we breathe and threaten the health of Americans across the country.  A recent report by EPA shows how important this landmark law has been in protecting public health.  In 2010 alone, just one part of the CAA prevented:

• 160,000 premature deaths;

• 130,000 heart attacks;

• More than 100,000 hospital visits by preventing millions of cases of respiratory problems, including bronchitis and asthma.  It enhanced productivity by preventing millions of lost workdays, and kept kids healthy and in school, avoiding millions of lost school days due to respiratory illness and other diseases caused or exacerbated by air pollution.

Since 1970, the CAA has reduced key air pollutants that cause smog and particulate pollution by more than 60 percent.  At the same time the economy has more than tripled.  And since the CAA Amendments in 1990, electricity production is up and prices are stable.  In 2009, electric utilities delivered 33 percent more electricity to U.S. households and businesses than in 1990, while nationwide electricity prices remained essentially unchanged.

Over its 40-year span, the benefits of the CAA – in the form of longer lives, healthier kids, greater workforce productivity, and ecosystem protections – outweigh the costs by more than 30 to one.

Passage of H.R. 910 would also block important policy measures that enable the CAA to achieve additional societal benefits related to carbon pollution.  For example, the bill would block EPA’s involvement in the historic, bipartisan Federal program to promote vehicle fuel economy standards for Model Years 2017-2025.  This program will reduce oil consumption, provide significant savings to American consumers at the pump, and limit pollution from tailpipe emissions.  Further, H.R. 910 would second guess the widely-accepted scientific consensus that carbon pollution is at increasingly dangerous concentrations and is contributing to the threat of climate change.  This could create uncertainty around the requirements which are currently in effect for the Model Year 2012-2016 vehicle standards.  Finally, H.R. 910 would contradict public health experts and scientists and strip EPA of its authority to develop sensible standards for currently unchecked carbon pollution, and thus prevent EPA from following its statutory obligations as interpreted by the Supreme Court.

If the President is presented with this legislation, which would seriously roll back the CAA authority, harm Americans’ health by taking away our ability to decrease carbon pollution, and undercut fuel efficiency standards that will save Americans money at the pump while decreasing our dependence on oil, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.

"The Gipper" explains why William Ruckelshaus (just behind him) is his choice to run EPA.

These days, Ronald Reagan is something of a hero to conservatives in Congress who see him as the champion of a smaller government with less taxes and low deficits (as numerous media have reported–the praise he earns on taxes and deficits often ignores the historical facts of his policies. you can read more about that here.)  Many of these modern-day Reagan-worshipers are the same folks who are behind the unprecedented assault on the Environmental Protection Agency, working to slash EPA’s budgets and deprive the agency of its authority to keep our air and water clean, and our nation’s people protected from the pollution hazards that threaten our health.

Since Ronald Reagan is resting in peace, we can’t ask him what he thinks about the present-day assault on the EPA.  But we can pay heed to the views expressed by William Ruckelshaus, the man that President Reagan and President Nixon entrusted to run the  EPA.  Writing in today’s Washington Post along with Christine Todd Whitman, former Republican Governor of New Jersey and former EPA Administrator under George W. Bush, these former cabinet members injected some much-needed nonpartisan perspective on the importance of a strong, science-based EPA into the debate:

Today the agency President Richard Nixon created in response to the public outcry over visible air pollution and flammable rivers is under siege. The Senate is poised to vote on a bill that would, for the first time, “disapprove” of a scientifically based finding, in this case that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. This finding was extensively reviewed by officials in the administrations of presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. It was finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency in response to a 2007 Supreme Court decision that greenhouse gases fit within the Clean Air Act definition of air pollutants.

…

It has taken four decades to put in place the infrastructure to ensure that pollution is controlled through limitations on corporate, municipal and individual conduct. Dismantle that infrastructure today, and a new one would have to be created tomorrow at great expense and at great sacrifice to America’s public health and environment. The American public will not long stand for an end to regulations that have protected their health and quality of life.

You can read the entire op-ed by clicking here.

It’s time to remind EPA’s conservative congressional opponents of the role that Republican predecessors and the professionals they appointed played in building an EPA that has made our environment cleaner and our economy stronger, while improving and protecting public health. CLF is making that easy for constituents of Republican Senators Snowe and Collins in Maine and Scott Brown in Massachusetts–click here to find out more–and spread the word to your friends in other parts of the country.

As part of the national effort to streamline and improve regulations launched by President Obama in an Executive Order the Environmental Protection Agency is soliciting comments on what regulations should be “modified, streamlined, expanded, or repealed” — so tell them what you think! They have a webpage that explains what they are looking for and provides an opportunity to submit comments online.

At a recent “listening session” held in Boston CLF offered these thoughts to EPA.  The deadline for comments is April 4, 2011– let your voice be heard !

Take a deep breath. Are you taking your clean air for granted? Don’t.

Today, the EPA proposed a rule to reduce hazardous emissions from coal and oil-fired power plants, such as mercury, arsenic, heavy metals, acid gases and dioxins, which cause thousands of deaths every year. This “air toxics rule” finally implements instructions that Congress gave to EPA in the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990. This much overdue effort, which builds upon decades of Clean Air Act implementation by EPA, protects the public health and serves as a reminder that if the EPA was stripped of its authority to enforce the Clean Air Act, essential safeguards like this wouldn’t exist.

The Clean Air Act is the most successful law our country has ever had to protect public health, preserve our environment and boost our economy. However, the key tool to ensure that protection is in jeopardy. Our senators are facing mounting pressure from our country’s biggest polluters to block the EPA’s ability to do its job, leaving harmful emissions from coal-fired power plants and other sources unchecked and threatening the health of our families and communities. Tell your senators that you expect them to protect you and your family, not big polluters.

New England states have shown leadership in passing progressive environmental laws to protect the health and homes of New Englanders. But it’s not just about us. Our region bears the brunt of pollution from power plants in the Midwest transported here by prevailing winds, which adds to pollution produced locally. Without federal EPA regulation, New England will remain vulnerable to harmful emissions literally blowing into our region.

Tell your senators today that you don’t take clean air for granted and that they shouldn’t either. Ask them to defend the EPA’s ability to do its job and enforce the Clean Air Act. Our region and our nation’s health, economy and environment depend on it.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

Today, the EPA announced the first national standard for emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants. This rule will protect public health, preserve our environment and boost our economy, particularly for New England, which absorbs the downwind effects of air pollutants generated in other regions of the country. Jonathan Peress, CLF’s director of clean energy and climate change, responds.

“Right now, coal-fired power plants are allowed to poison the air we breathe with toxic pollutants like mercury, arsenic and lead. The EPA’s proposed ‘Air Toxics Rule’ will provide critical protection from major health impacts, including cancer, brain damage and birth defects, associated with this deadly brew of as yet unregulated pollutants.” More >

The story is sad and simple:

The National Research Council (the “NRC”) of the National Academies, the official science and technology adviser to the nation was directed by United States Congress in 2008 to “investigate and study the serious and sweeping issues relating to global climate change and make recommendations regarding what steps must be taken and what strategies must be adopted in response to global climate change, including the science and technology challenges thereof.”

In its report to Congress in 2010 the NRC stated that, “A strong, credible body of scientific evidence shows that climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems.”  Not surprising as this is deeply consistent with the conclusions that so many other scientists and experts, like those at the American Geophysical Union, have also reached about the phenomena of Greenhouse Gas emissions from human activities and the resulting changes to our climate.

Did Congress respond to this expert advice by enacting comprehensive climate legislation?  If you are reading this you are almost certainly aware that the answer is “no” – that after heroic efforts led to passage of a climate and energy bill in the House that effort, sadly, collapsed in the U.S. Senate.

Many of the same folks who prevented Congress from taking action to address this most systemic and dangerous of threats are now working to stop the Federal Government from taking action to reduce emissions of the Greenhouse Gases that are threatening the public health and environment.  Incredibly, those who stopped Congress from taking action are now arguing that EPA should not step in – but rather leave this job to Congress, a job they worked so hard Congress did not complete.

Specifically, at 2:23 AM on February 19, 2011 the U.S. House of Representatives approved an amendment to the “Continuing Resolution” needed to prevent a shut-down of the Federal Government that would “prohibit use of funds by EPA to implement, administer, or enforce any statutory or regulatory requirement pertaining to emissions of greenhouse gases”.  Yes, you read that right, they are not eliminating the responsibility of EPA to take action – just taking away the money to fund the agency from doing so !! Want to see how your Representative voted? Check it out.  And at 4:40 AM the “Continuing Resolution” (now with that amendment embedded in it) was passed by the House.

But the story is not over. Not by far.  Will the Senate step up and allow EPA to do its job? A  job that (as explained by the United States Supreme Court in the court case known as  Massachusetts v. EPA)  was given to it by Congress in the Clean Air Act.  Will the Senate listen to science and allow EPA to protect the environment and the public health?  Give your Senator a call or drop them an email and ask them where they stand on this issue – with science and working to protect our health and the environment and with those trying to build a new clean energy economy or with the forces of denial who are fighting against the future and protecting entrenched fossil fuel interests.  Ask them oppose this effort to deny EPA of the power and resources to move forward in the battle to fight global warming.

With just one click of your mouse, you can help save 500 million barrels of oil, cut 250 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution, and produce $41 billion in net economic benefits.

Please take action today: Support EPA’s first-ever climate pollution and fuel economy standards for freight trucks and buses.

The deadline for comments is Monday, January 31st, so make sure your voice is heard.

Background

Last October, the EPA and the Department of Transportation (DOT) issued a joint proposal to adopt America’s first-ever climate pollution and fuel economy standards for freight trucks and buses.

These vehicles – from the largest pickups to 18-wheelers – use more than 100 million gallons of oil per day. They are also responsible for about 20% of the climate pollution from America’s transportation sector.

The new standards, which will apply to trucks and buses manufactured in model years 2014 to 2018, will help strengthen our economy, increase our national security and reduce dangerous air pollution. By 2030, the volume of projected daily oil savings from the proposed standards would be large enough to offset America’s oil imports from Iraq.

This proposal follows two previous actions by EPA and DOT to improve fuel efficiency and climate pollution standards for passenger cars and trucks.

The first announcement was in April, when the Obama administration adopted the first-ever national greenhouse gas emission standards for model year 2012-2016 cars and light trucks. The second announcement came in October with the announcement of a blueprint for new standards for model years 2017 to 2025.

CLF has led our region in pushing for these initiatives to reduce dangerous emissions from transportation and protect the health of all New Englanders. Please join CLF in supporting these new standards by submitting your comments to the EPA.

The public comment period ends January 31st, so add yours now.

In a letter to President Obama today, CLF added a regional voice to the chorus of national organizations asking him to use the State of the Union address on January 25th to show his support for the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act’s vital public health protections are once again under attack from the nation’s biggest polluters and their supporters in Congress; the President has a chance to let the nation know where he stands. We were proud to represent New England in this important call to action to the President.

Today, the U.S. EPA announced that it will join CLF’s lawsuit against the Boston Water and Sewer Commission (BWSC) for violations of the Clean Water Act. The suit, filled by CLF in U.S. District Court in February 2010, states that BWSC has failed to control polluted discharges from its storm water system, allowing it to carry raw sewage and excessive levels of bacterial, copper and zinc into Boston’s waterways, threatening the health and well-being of the surrounding communities.

BOSTON, MA  December 22, 2010 – The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) has issued the following statement in response to the motion filed today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stating that it will join CLF’s lawsuit against the Boston Water and Sewer Commission (BWSC) for violations of the Clean Water Act:

“The complaint against the Boston Water and Sewer Commission documents serious failures in the system that are allowing ongoing unlawful pollution of Boston’s waterways, including the Charles, Mystic and Neponset Rivers, in some the city’s most economically-challenged communities,” said Christopher Kilian, director of CLF’s Clean Water and Healthy Forests program. “The federal government’s entry into this case is a clear indication of the urgency of the matter and the priority EPA places on it. BWSC’s inability to maintain a system that ensures clean water is a violation of the law and an affront to the people of Boston. The United States agrees with CLF that BWSC must make a major commitment now to improve water quality, as other cities have done, and restore these resources to health for everyone’s benefit.” More>>