Isra-Mart srl:Fight for future of EPA intensifies ahead of crucial House vote

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The battle over Republican efforts to pass a bill stripping the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the right to regulate greenhouse gas emissions has intensified this week ahead of a crucial House committee vote on the proposed bill later today.

The Energy and Commerce Committee is expected to vote on the bill, moving it one step closer to a full vote in the House of Representatives.

Despite heated exchanges between Republicans and Democrats during a hearing this week on climate science, the committee vote could prove surprisingly uneventful. According to influential Washington blog The Hill, Democrats are considering tabling no amendments to the bill at this stage.

Representative Eliot Engel told the blog the no-amendment approach was under discussion for the markup vote.

"We think it is putrid and you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear," he said of the bill. "They are hell-bent on trying to repeal [EPA's authority] - we think it is outrageous, I think that any fair-minded person would know it is outrageous, and I don't know that we would want to dignify it."

However, Representatives have clashed this week over Republican statements suggesting EPA rules requiring industrial sites make use of the most efficient available technology will lead to increased fuel prices.

Republicans have circulated press releases suggesting that the new bill will help hold down fuel prices. But Democrats have countered that the statements are based on an economic analysis relating to previous cap-and-trade legislation.

"It is laughable to claim that EPA's modest energy-efficiency requirements for a small number of new power plants and other large facilities are identical to H.R. 2454, the comprehensive energy bill passed by the House in the last Congress," Representative Henry Waxman said in a statement.

The controversial bill currently has 30 co-sponsors, including three Democrats, and is widely expected to pass through the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, although it will face a much sterner challenge securing the 60 votes required to pass through the Senate and the White House has already signalled President Obama would veto the bill.

However, there are signs the bill could pave the way for separate compromise legislation that still dilutes the EPA's powers.

Democrat Senator Jay Rockefeller has worked on a bill that would delay the EPA's latest round of emissions rules by two years, while Democrat Representative Gene Green said yesterday that he is working on similar compromise legislation that would block EPA climate rules until carbon capture and storage technology is available.