5 AGs Urge Senate to Let States Set Higher Climate Standards

When it comes to U.S. environmental laws, individual states almost always blaze the trail for the nation.

They launched the first auto emissions regulations, building efficiency standards and emissions reporting rules. Now, they’re testing cap-and-trade programs, renewable electricity standards and renewable fuel standards, just to name a few.

So, as U.S. senators prepare to write their version of the federal climate and energy bill, five states are speaking out, urging them to step carefully and ensure that Congress preserves the authority of individual states to set even higher standards and to enforce the rules.

The five want a federal climate bill expedited, no question.

“We believe that the climate bill passed by the House, the American Energy and Security Act (ACES), represents a strong foundation upon which the Senate can build,” the attorneys general of California, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware and New Jersey write in a letter to senators.

But the bills and proposals offered right now need work if they're going to succeed.

In addition to preserving state authority, the Senate should remove the House bill’s shackles from the EPA and allow it to regulate CO2 so the nation’s aging power plants aren’t free to pollute the air with impunity, the attorneys general write:

“In the absence of any controls for existing facilities, the bill would allow owners of older, dirtier plants to continue operating (or expand) their plants, free from controls such as improved efficiency or cleaner fuels."

The Senate also needs to get its reduction targets back on track with the science.

Preserving State Authority

When the House passed the ACES bill earlier this year, it included a section preempting state caps on greenhouse gas emissions for the first five years. The rule would halt the Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative trading and the block plans for a similar program by the Western Climate Initiative.

It also would stop progressive states from ordering stricter emissions caps.

The five attorneys general say preempting tougher state caps is unwarranted. But they are more concerned that the language in the bill could be broadened in ways that effectively prevent other state climate measures. A few state powers are protected in the House bill, such as regulatory authority over renewable energy standards, but not all.

To protect the states' ability to push for better environmental laws in the future, they're calling for an umbrella clause that specifically preserves state regulatory authority and a section “recognizing the important role of state programs and stating that these efforts complement and further the purposes of the federal bill.”

“Allowing states to go beyond federal minimum requirements—which is the model of most existing federal environmental statutes—has worked well to improve the nation’s environment over the past four decades and stimulated innovation through creative state experimentation,” the attorneys general write.

They also urge the Senate to preserve state enforcement authority for markets, noting that “the allowance and derivatives markets will be susceptible to fraud at multiple levels—from facility emissions reporting through allowance commodity trading.” They worry that the market oversight proposal by Sens. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) is too weak.

Unshackling the EPA

One area of the House bill that has also raised the ire of some lawmakers and advocacy groups, including MoveOn.org, is how it would limit the EPA’s enforcement authority of power plants when it comes to CO2 emissions.