More
- Classifieds
- Cars
- Deals
- Real Estate
- Rentals
- Photos
- Blogs

Obama’s decision on smog rule offers hints on regulation strategy

By Juliet Eilperin and Peter Wallsten,September 03, 2011

(Page 2 of 2)

But Sunstein said observers should not draw larger conclusions based on the ozone action, which was Obama’s personal decision. The president’s arguments, Sunstein added, “are very distinctive to the discussion of ozone.”

In some ways, the ozone regulation was easier to jettison than others, because it will come up for review again in 2013 and other air-quality rules could achieve some of the same outcomes. Key industries had made powerful economic arguments against it, warning the White House that they might not open new facilities out of concern that the standards would block their operating permits.

Natural-gas companies, for example, argued to the administration that the rule might hamper their ability to take advantage of newly accessible natural-gas reserves.

Cal Dooley, president and chief executive of the American Chemical Council, said his members made it clear that they were “really poised to make billions of dollars in investments in the United States.”

Stephen Brown, vice president and counsel for Tesoro Cos., said people would be wrong to assume that the administration will abandon several of the other controversial air-quality regulations the EPA is planning to finalize this year.

“They are not backing down from using the Clean Air Act to regulate across the board,” Brown said. “This was probably the weakest one to fight on, politically. They opted not to; that’s all it is.”

In private meetings and public statements, White House officials emphasized Friday that they would still push to enact measures such as the mercury and air toxins rule and touted these regulations as part of the administration’s environmental commitment.

But Daniel J. Weiss, who directs climate strategy for the liberal research group Center for American Progress, said administration officials were naive if they thought that Republicans would be satisfied with one regulatory concession on air pollution.

“It’s hard to understand why they made this decision, which will only embolden their enemies and alienate their allies,” Weiss said, adding that since House Republicans have identified mercury as one of the six EPA rules they plan to roll back this fall, “they’re going to have to fight even harder to protect it because their opponents just won on one of their six items.”

Compromising

For weeks, the Obama administration had struggled with how to split the difference on the smog rule, which had both enormous economic and public-health implications. At a closed meeting with environmentalists in mid-July, Daley wondered aloud why the two sides couldn’t reach the sort of agreement the White House recently brokered on fuel efficiency for cars and light trucks. Advocates noted that it was easier to negotiate with a single industry, especially one that had been bailed out by the federal government and faced the possibility of strict regulations on the state level.

While both industry and activists will be scrutinizing Obama’s upcoming jobs speech for further clues to his regulatory strategy, the unease among his supporters is palpable. Nearly 250 climate activists were arrested Saturday at the White House protesting the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would connect Canada’s oil sands to the Gulf Coast.

Courtney Hight, who ran Obama’s 2008 youth vote operation in Florida and coordinates youth activists as co-director of the Energy Action Coalition, said Friday’s news made her nervous about other decisions facing the president.

“We want to see him stand up and fight,” said Hight, who was arrested at the White House on Thursday.

Continued1

2