Senate Votes To Reject Motion Blocking EPA Emissions Regulations

10th Jun 2010 21:17

By Siobhan Hughes and Corey Boles Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--U.S. Senate Democrats, responding to the environmental wing of the party's base, held together and narrowly fended off a Republican-led effort to overturn the first-ever nationwide regulations to limit greenhouse-gas emissions. By 53-47, the U.S. Senate voted against proceeding with a resolution disapproving of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finding that rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere endanger the public. The finding, issued last year, is the basis for new rules to curb greenhouse-gas emissions from cars, trucks, power plants and other facilities. Businesses have warned that higher costs and job losses will result. The Republicans needed 51 votes. "Too much carbon pollution in the air is dangerous," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.). In a line of attack that Republicans view as unfair and that Democrats are increasingly pushing, Boxer brought up the BP PLC (BP,BP.LN) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico--the worst in U.S. history--as evidence of "what too much carbon-based pollution does in water; what it does to our shorelines; what it does to our beaches; what it does to our wetlands." With the EPA regulations due to take hold starting in 2011, lawmakers from heavily industrialized states are growing anxious. In a sign of the concern, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W. Va.), broke ranks with his party and joined Republicans in an attempt to block rules that would disadvantage fossil fuels such as coal, which underpin his state's economy. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) led the charge against the EPA, calling its rules an "unprecedented overreach" into "the affairs of Congress." She warned that the costs of the EPA's regulations are unknown, since the agency hasn't yet specified what counts as the best technologies to control emissions from stationary sources. -By Siobhan Hughes, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6654; [email protected] -By Corey Boles, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6601; [email protected] (END) Dow Jones Newswires June 10, 2010 16:17 ET (20:17 GMT)