The Dirty Air Act

By Chloe Sullivan
Contributing Writer

After months of delays and setbacks, a resolution drafted by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) regarding the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act is expected to be voted on this week.

This resolution, which was first set to be voted on back in January, seeks to essentially veto the EPA’s Endangerment Finding, which is “the scientific conclusion that the EPA came to, that said that greenhouse gases are a danger to public health,” said Jason Schaefer of the North Dakota Wildlife Federation.

“If this resolution goes through you are setting a very dangerous precedent. [The precedent] is that the Senate can overturn scientific findings simply because they don’t like the politics of that finding, and that’s dangerous, especially in a democratic society, one that values education and knowledge,” said Schaefer. “Essentially Sen. Murkowski is brash enough to not only try and undermine the scientific consensus here but undermine the Supreme Court finding.”

But groups like the North Dakota Chamber of Commerce (NDCC) and Duane Sand’s group North Dakota Taxpayers Association (NDTA) paint a slightly different picture of the Supreme Court’s finding. “Their decision said that if greenhouse gases are pollutants, then they may be regulated under the Clean Air Act. When the EPA went to direct whether greenhouse gases are a pollutant they didn’t necessarily look at it in a neutral way like let’s look at the science and see what happens,” said Jeb Oehlke, the Vice President of Governmental Affairs for the North Dakota Chamber of Commerce. “They went in it with a view of ok, we want to regulate greenhouse gases so let’s find that they are a pollutant.”

The NDCC believes that if the EPA is allowed to regulate greenhouse gases, it is overstepping the system of checks and balances that are supposed to exist within the government. “The EPA is basically writing new law as an executive branch agency and that’s not the way our government is supposed to work. There is a system of checks and balances and if the executive branch would take over creating new law they are usurping the authority of the legislative branch,” said Oehlke.

Sand’s taxpayers group sees the resolution slightly differently, although still opposing a no vote. “We’ve got Congressman Pomeroy who has been saying for months that he told Obama that he wasn’t going to support cap and trade. Not supporting cap and trade and letting the EPA [regulate] on their own, those are conflicting arguments,” said Executive Director of North Dakota Taxpayers Association Dustin Gawrylow. “Between Congressman Pomeroy and both of our senators, if they truly mean what they’ve been saying, in that they don’t support cap and trade, then they can’t let the EPA do cap and trade on its own. When they say [cap and trade] is bad for the state we agree with them but what are they going to do about it? ”

Another reason the NDTA wants the resolution to pass in the Senate involves the state’s economy and its dependency on energy. Currently North Dakota is one of the only, if not the only, state that isn’t facing a large deficit and the NDTA believes that if this resolution doesn’t get passed it will have a direct effect on the energy industry in the state. “Our economy is so dependent on energy, if we didn’t have this energy industry we would be in a deficit like every other state. We are in a very unique position in that we are the only state above water and now the federal government wants to do something that will impact us disproportionally to every other state,” said Gawrylow.

With the EPA able to regulate greenhouse gases it will be much harder for the state to build oil refineries, which is what many investors want to do. “Without public policy that is decided and kind of stable, that private investment isn’t going to happen. So it’s putting a noose around the energy business by saying we don’t know what we want the policies to be so you can kind of hang here and wait till we decide,” said Gawrylow. “That’s not leadership, we need some leadership here.”

However, environmentalist groups think that the passing of this resolution would undermine the consensus of thousands of scientist throughout the world. “No matter what you think about if the EPA should regulate greenhouse gases or not, the fact of the matter that there is a scientific consensus that greenhouse gas pollution is a threat to public health,” said Schaefer. In an interview with the New York Times Manik Roy, Vice President for Federal Government Outreach at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said that if the Senate failed to pass Murkowski’s resolution it would be a sign that Congress takes climate change seriously.

Shortly before Murkowski’s “Dirty Air Act,” which is what groups like Repower ND and the National Wildlife Federation are calling it, was to come up for vote, the Washington Post published an expose stating that two lobbyists that held senior posts at the EPA during the Bush administration had helped craft this resolution. Jeffery R. Holmstead and Roger R. Martella, Jr. acknowledged their involvement in working with Murkowski but insist that they had no involvement in the later amendments of the resolution.

Because this resolution clashes with the politics of the Obama administration, it is very likely that if it does make it through the Senate the president will veto the document. “For [Murkowski] to get the votes to overturn that veto would be difficult, so it’s not so much of it getting passed into law as it is that it’s a big waste of time and distraction from the job at hand, which is to pass comprehensive clean energy legislation. We really need to get this country moving on a smart path forward,” said Schaefer.

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