Senate EPW Committee Approves Bill to Limit CO2 Emissions

Environmental Defense today hailed a vote by the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee to regulate power plant emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) as well as conventional pollutants - mercury, sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrous oxide (NOx).

“For the first time we now have legislation passed by a Senate committee that cuts and caps emissions of carbon dioxide - a leading contributor to global warming. This is truly a watershed moment,” said Environmental Defense senior attorney Joseph Goffman.

On a vote of 10 to 8, senate bill S.556 was given the green light by members of the Senate EPW committee. The legislation, authored by Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-VT), could be considered by the full U.S. Senate later this year. But the bill also faces opposition from those who do not want to see Congress enact mandatory restrictions on the amount of CO₂ that can be released by power plants into the atmosphere

“Those who are opposed to mandatory limits on CO₂ emissions as part of any multi-pollutant package are simply choosing to bury their heads in the sand. As the federal government’s own report on climate change recently noted, the Earth’s atmosphere is becoming warmer and that is going to affect human health and the environment,” Goffman said. “The longer we wait to act on reducing levels of CO₂, the higher the cost will be both in real dollars and in quality of life. That is why it is urgent to find a path to enacting legislation - not in five years, but in the next year - that actually will deliver the reductions.”