Muzzle Murkowski, let EPA do its job

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, revived an old routine from the Bush administration that even the U.S. Supreme Court found pointless and irritating.

She wants legislation to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Former President George W. Bush must be proud.

In the process of undermining the credibility and regulatory role of the EPA, Bush had refused to let the agency look at harm caused by greenhouse-gas pollution. In 2007, the Supreme Court said the agency had the authority to do the inquiry, and the court wanted to know why it had not been done.

Bush ignored the ruling, and essentially stalled for the remainder of his time in office. The bureaucratic evasions contrived by the administration are legend. Last week the EPA, under a new president, concluded scientific reviews which confirmed greenhouse gases qualified as a pollutant.

The action would set in motion regulatory activity that Murkowski does not want to see started. EPA's administrative duties and options, as sanctified by the nation's highest court, become all the more important if Congress fails to advance meaningful climate legislation.

EPA is not the problem. The issue is harmful practices and behaviors that compromise human health and endanger the planet. The work is never done, and while the new efforts look at greenhouse gases, the EPA is still chasing down scofflaw industrial polluters.

Murkowski's tiresome political performance is no better in reruns.