NAM urges EPA 'time out' from regulating greenhouse gases

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) on September 23 sent a Key Vote letter to U.S. Senators urging them to support an amendment by Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Arkansas) to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from issuing an “endangerment finding” for carbon dioxide in an attempt to regulate greenhouse gases (GHG) under the Clean Air Act.

Specifically, Senator Murkowski’s amendment would prohibit the EPA from regulating emissions from stationary sources such as power plants and industrial facilities for one year.

“The EPA is trying to use the Clean Air Act as a blunt instrument,” said NAM executive vice president Jay Timmons. “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 GHG emissions. This would undermine the objectives for any rational federal climate policy. Further, a determination by EPA is not simply an observation by the agency about climate change - it is a policy determination which will have profound consequences on American workers and deserves rigorous and transparent congressional debate.”

The 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,” said Timmons.

The NAM will consider all votes and potential procedural motions on the Murkowski amendment to H.R. 2996, the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations bill for designation as Key Manufacturing Votes in the 111th Congress.