Isramart : EPA Has No Plans for Own Carbon-Trading Program

Isramart news:
The Obama administration has no plans to set up a “cap-and-trade” program for greenhouse gases under existing law if Congress doesn’t pass legislation doing so, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said.

Some people are “over reading” the EPA’s budget request for fiscal 2011, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in remarks at the National Press Club in Washington.

Cap-and-trade legislation, which is stalled in Congress, would create a market for carbon dioxide permits that lets companies buy and sell the right to pollute. The agency’s Feb. 1 budget request, which is subject to congressional approval, calls for $7.5 million to examine greenhouse gas regulations that may include “market-oriented mechanisms.”

“I don’t think you should read into that that we have some plan that folks don’t know about to enforce a cap-and-trade regime,” Jackson said. “We don’t at all.”

Jackson said she believes Congress will pass cap-and-trade legislation “hopefully sooner rather than later.”