House Votes To Bar EPA On Climate Regs But Senate Rejects

The House voted 255 to 172 on April 6 to end the Obama administration’s program to regulate industrial air emissions linked to climate change.  The measure would also nullify a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that gave the agency the authority to issue regulations to curb those emissions.

The Senate on April 5th came up 10 votes short of the 60 votes needed to avert a filibuster on a bill similar to the House legislation.

Forty-six Senate Republicans and four Democrats voted to support a GOP amendment blocking the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. One Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, sided with the remainder of the Democrats and the White House in opposing the amendment to the small-business bill that needed 60 votes to pass.

The Senate defeated four amendments that would have permanently or temporarily prevented the environmental agency from policing greenhouse gas emissions, including one measure that was virtually identical to the House bill. That amendment, sponsored by Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, both Republicans, drew four Democratic votes but remained well short of a filibuster-proof majority.

President Obama threatened to veto any measure that would hinder the administration’s efforts to restrict emissions that scientists say are warming the atmosphere and leading to potentially devastating changes in the global climate. (NYT, 4/7/2011, Politico, 4/6/2011)