Senate Hearing Examines Possible EPA Regulation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Washington, D.C., September 23, 2008— The U.S. Senate on Tuesday is slated to hear
testimony on possible regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, part of the
aftermath of the Supreme Court’s April 2007 ruling in Massachusetts
v EPA.

“I
believe we would not be here today if the Justices of the Supreme Court had
known back in April 2007, when they decided Massachusetts v EPA, what
has since become painfully clear: The Clean Air Act is a flawed, unsuitable,
and potentially destructive instrument for reducing greenhouse gas emissions,”
said Marlo Lewis, CEI Senior Fellow,
in testimony submitted to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

“It is inconceivable that those who
drafted and enacted the Clean Air Act intended for it to undermine the economy
and jeopardize environmental enforcement,” Lewis continued. “Yet economic
devastation and administrative paralysis are real risks if EPA attempts to
pound the square peg of climate policy into the round hole of the Clean Air
Act.”

In Massachusetts v. EPA, the court ruled, in a 5-4 decision, that the Clean Air
Act gives EPA the authority to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases
and ordered the agency to articulate a reasonable basis for not doing so.

View info on the Environment
and Public Works Committee hearing.

Read the full written testimony.

Read more on Massachusetts v. EPA.

About Marlo Lewis.

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group
dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government.  For more information about CEI, please visit
our website at www.cei.org.