As Congress returns to work today after a two-week recess, energy and the environment have moved ahead of health care as the top priorities for lawmakers in the next three months.
The change came after the Environmental Protection Agency ruling that carbon dioxide — the fourth-largest component of the atmosphere — is a hazard to human health because of global warming.
Democratic leaders could use the decision, announced Friday, as a lever to move House and Senate Democrats who have been reluctant to support legislation that would charge fees for carbon emissions. If Congress refuses to act, the EPA will put its own regulations in place to curb carbon emissions.
“The decision rendered by the EPA obviously puts the legislative process on a much shorter timetable,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., who heads a House committee on global warming.
All signs point to the EPA giving Congress only until the end of the year to act. That’s because President Barack Obama heads to the Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Dec. 6 and is intent on showing European countries he is more serious about combating climate change than his predecessor, George W. Bush, experts say.
“This way, they can go to Copenhagen and say they’ve taken dramatic action,” said Brookings Institution scholar Charles Ebinger, who specializes in international and domestic energy markets. “The Europeans have such inflated expectations of Obama, it would be an enormous diplomatic setback if we went and said we haven’t done anything yet.”
With this time frame in mind, the House this week will hold hearings on a bill drafted by Markey and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., to cap carbon emissions and require those who pollute beyond the cap to pay extra. Their bill includes dozens of other new regulations, such as a requirement that power companies get a quarter of their energy from renewable sources within 15 years.
The Waxman-Markey bill also targets the auto industry with a proposal to nationalize low fuel-emission standards for vehicles made in the United States and a call for producing more electric cars.
The committee plans to complete work on the bill by the end of April.
Many Democrats oppose parts of the bill based on regional concerns, and few Republicans, if any, will back it.
Some of the provisions requiring cleaner energy would translate into bigger electric bills in many districts, especially in the South and places like Michigan and Ohio, so the bill would be a tough sell for those lawmakers.
Some lawmakers from car-manufacturing districts will have difficulty embracing the tougher automobile fuel efficiency standards and the directive that the beleaguered auto companies produce more Earth-friendly vehicles.
But those members, who were saying “no” to the energy bill last week, may have little choice but to negotiate or face tough EPA regulations over which they have no control.
“This decision is a game changer,” Markey said. “It is no longer a choice between doing a bill or doing nothing.”
Any bill that passes the House faces a tougher battle in the Senate, where there is a much slimmer Democratic majority. Nonetheless, Democratic leaders on Friday were sticking to their timeline of taking up an energy bill by the summer.
