EPA’s Record Budget Plan Spurs Debate in Congress Over Carbon Emissions

This story appears in the May 18 print edition of Transport Topics.

Details of the Environmental Protection Agency’s record $10.5 billion fiscal 2010 budget proposal — a 37% increase — quickly set off a partisan debate in Congress last week over the agency’s plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

If approved by Congress, the budget will allow EPA to begin transforming the U.S. economy through investment in cutting-edge green technologies, start repairing the nation’s crumbling infrastructure and clean the nation’s water and air, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told members of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

“It reflects both the challenges and promise we face in an era of higher energy costs, global climate change, and economic crisis,” Jackson said.

However, several Republicans on the Senate committee criticized EPA for its recent “endangerment” finding that greenhouse gas emissions are a danger to public health, seen as a first step toward a cap-and-trade program to regulate carbon emissions.

They said a cap-and-trade program would be ill-timed during an economic turndown.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said the EPA budget will “feed a growing regulatory monster,” and he called the recent carbon emissions endangerment finding “political, and not scientific.”

“This is not an investment in America’s future but an investment in Washington’s future,” Barrasso said.

But Jackson said the endangerment finding was based on science and mandated by law and would allow EPA to move gradually to a program to reduce carbon emissions.

She also said investments in green technologies actually would strengthen the economy.

“The race for clean energy is on,” Jackson told the committee. She said she feared the United States would be left behind in the competition for global green technologies if it did not act now.

Included in the EPA budget re-quest is funding for the agency to complete the development of its greenhouse gas mandatory reporting rule by comprehensive emissions data. The data collection is a precursor to implementing comprehensive climate legislation, which could include a cap-and-trade program for both stationary and mobile sources, EPA said.

The 2010 budget calls for cutting $15 million in diesel emission reduction grants for California. However, EPA officials said the recent stimulus bill includes $300 million for diesel emission reductions nationwide.

The California budget cutbacks would be justified because the Obama administration wants to attack the diesel emission problem nationwide and not state by state, EPA officials said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said its fiscal 2010 budget will not include any new funding for the Trucking Security Program be-cause it “does not allocate awards based on risk assessment.”

However, Charles Hall, president of HMS Co., Alexandria, Va., which was awarded a three-year, $15.5 million TSP grant in the 2009 Transportation Security Administration budget, said the “First Observer” program is funded for the next 2½ years.

HMS was one of 11 bidders competing for the grant to operate the successor program to American Trucking Associations’ Highway Watch program.

“First Observer is funded,” Hall said. “There is some concern with the language about outer years and we need to get some clarification on that.”

DHS spokesman Greg Soule confirmed the First Observer program will continue to be funded for the full three-year length of the grant.

But a budget document outlining suggested Obama administration program cuts noted that the Government Accountability Office and DHS inspector general have “questioned the homeland security benefits achieved through this program, relative to its costs.”

In all, the $42.7 billion DHS budget proposal “focuses on reduction and savings” while supporting the efforts of the department’s 208,000 employees to guard against terrorism, secure U.S. borders, enforce smart and tough immigration laws, improve disaster response and unify the massive agency, said Peggy Sherry, acting chief financial officer for DHS, at a May 7 news conference.

It also adds funding to beef up the agency’s efforts to protect the U.S. cyber-security infrastructure.

In a May 12 hearing, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, said he had concerns over DHS budget cutbacks in fire equipment for first responders and a lean budget for the U.S. Coast Guard.

Lieberman lauded Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for adding employees to the agency’s procurement office to keep a closer watch on the large number of contractors.

Asked for the number of contractors working for DHS, Napolitano said she was in the process of reviewing the contracts.

“I don’t even want to ballpark it,” Napolitano said. “That’s how many there are.”