EPA Moves Forward With New Emissions Rules

Just as climate-change legislation began a slow trek through the Senate this week, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was moving forward on new restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions at power plants and industrial facilities, the New York Times reports. The new rules, which could go into effect by 2011, would place the highest burden on 400 power plants that are either new or undergoing substantial renovation, requiring them to prove they have used the best available technology.

"We are not going to continue with business as usual," EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said Wednesday. "We have the tools and the technology to move forward today, and we are using them."

President Obama has said that he prefers a comprehensive legislative approach to climate change above "piecemeal" regulations, but he authorized the EPA to move forward on the new rules. Such a move could press lawmakers into reaching an agreement on legislation this year and help bolster the president's international case that the U.S. is taking climate change as seriously as it expects other to.

E.PA. Moves to Curtail Greenhouse Gas Emissions [New York Times]