The amendment, proposed by Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), would prohibit the EPA from regulating emissions from stationary sources, such as power plants and industrial facilities for one year. The Murkowski amendment pertains to H.R. 2996, the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations bill.
“The EPA is trying to use the Clean Air Act as a blunt instrument,” says Jay Timmons, NAM executive vice president. “An endangerment finding with no guidance from Congress would only impose overly burdensome compliance costs on the manufacturing sector and limit their ability to deploy advanced technologies, which will be necessary to deal effectively with the challenges posed by greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. This would undermine the objectives for any rational federal climate policy.”
NAM supports a comprehensive, federal climate policy change within a framework that will cause no economic harm while granting sufficient time to deploy low-carbon technologies, such as carbon capture and sequestration, renewable energy and large-scale deployment of nuclear power plants. The NAM believes this is an issue that must be debated by Congress without preemption from a federal agency.
“Putting regulations in place for thousands of stationary sources will result in serious risks to our nation’s economic recovery, with loss of jobs and high costs to manufacturers while impeding their ability to have any long-term international competitiveness,” Timmons says.
