EPA takes first step to cut industrial plant emissions

WASHINGTON — Pressing ahead with plans to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions despite a congressional stalemate over global warming, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday issued guidelines that gave states considerable discretion in regulating carbon-dioxide emissions from large industrial facilities like power plants, refineries and factories.

On Jan. 2, the country's largest emitters of greenhouse gases will have to show state regulators how they plan to curb such emissions when they build new facilities or make major changes in existing facilities that result in increased discharges of the gases that most scientists link to climate change and global warming.

While requiring states to secure plans for controlling carbon emissions, the guidelines gave states latitude to determine on a case-by-case basis the "best available" pollution-control technology that industrial facilities could use.

Gina McCarthy, EPA assistant administrator for air and radiation, said reductions would be achieved by companies focusing on energy efficiency rather than still-distant and experimental processes such as carbon capture and sequestration. McCarthy said the regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions would be similar to the process industrial facilities go through in getting permits to release other pollutants.

"For 40 years, we have found a way to issue permits that allowed economy to grow," McCarthy said in a conference call. "We will not stop that with greenhouse-gas process."

A 2007 Supreme Court decision pushed EPA to issue a determination last year, after a review of available science, that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that endangers public welfare and therefore is subject to regulation. EPA has issued a spate of rules this year on vehicle emissions and now on emissions from so-called stationary sites like factories and power plants.

The EPA's efforts have split states and industries alike, with some supporting and others filing suit against its regulation of greenhouse gases. Still, all but one state — Texas — is preparing to require permits for emission of greenhouse gases in new industrial construction starting next year.

"As a practical matter, no one is going to be able to get through EPA's new permitting process for a long time," said Jeffrey Holmstead, former administrator for air and radiation under President George W. Bush and now a lobbyist with Bracewell & Guiliani. "Even EPA staff admits that there will be a moratorium on construction for a couple of years."

The EPA, however, denied that any moratorium would be triggered by the new regulations, which by their estimates and those of state regulators, could affect about 300 companies next year.