Inhofe Leads GOP Opposition to Clean Air Legislation, Predicts Emissions Bill’s Failure in Senate

Sen. James Inhofe, (R-OK), one of the most vocal global warming skeptics in Congress, has suggested that the Senate will defeat clean air legislation by simply stalling. (image: thinkprogress.org)

It seems pretty straight forward. You make it worthwhile for industry to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and you get cleaner air, a better environment and slow down global warming. But getting opposing political factions to agree on how to do that, or even whether to do anything at all, is where things bog down.

Although the Environmental Protection Agency is empowered to regulate and punish polluters through the Clean Air Act, President Obama has said that he would “prefer that Congress address global warming rather than have the EPA tackle it through administrative action.” Legislation now before the House includes the recently proposed Waxman/Markey “cap and trade” bill.

That bill, designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent over the next decade, would work by assigning a maximum pollution level, or “cap” that a given source, say an electricity generating plant, is allowed to emit and then distributing allowances equal to the cap amount. Sources which reduce their emissions below the cap may sell their excess allowances to other sources which can’t or won’t reduce their own emissions. So, rather than being forced by the EPA, businesses determine the cheapest way to reduce their own emissions while government sets an overall cap that ensures environmental goals are met.

Critics of the bill come in several varieties. Some want the EPA to step in now, because, they say, the Waxman/Markey bill isn’t tough enough and will take too long to work its way through government. Another kind of critic wants to make sure that actually happens. In a recent speech to the Heartland Institute, Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma and Ranking Member of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, suggested that the Senate could defeat the bill and the EPA by simply stalling.  “Don’t be distressed when you see the House passes some kind of cap-and-trade bill,” Inhofe said. “And you know it could be worse and [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi] could still pass it, so it’ll pass there. The EPA has threatened to regulate this through the Clean Air Act. That isn’t going to work in my opinion because we can stall that until we get a new president – that shouldn’t be a problem. The House will pass the bill. In the Senate they are not going to be able to pass it.”

Inhofe has made a name for himself as the Senate’s staunchest and longest-standing skeptic of global warming. He famously declared that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” and has repeatedly proposed bills to protect businesses from environmentalists, who he calls “eco-terrorists.”

Among other opponents to Clean Air Act regulation, Inhofe says it would have “serious economic consequences” for small businesses and the overall economy. Of the EPA assertion in April that pollution is a public health problem, he said in a floor speech, “there is a lot we don’t know, yet we’re stretching the science to justify an endangerment finding.”