Lisa Jackson

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson testifies before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee about her agency's budget this morning, and she’s given the committee plenty to talk about.

In a letter on Monday responding to questions from Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and seven other coal-state Democrats, Jackson spelled out her plans for the endangerment finding — the EPA determination in December that greenhouse gases pose a danger to public health and welfare. That finding laid the foundation for future greenhouse gas regulation under the Clean Air Act and stirred up fierce opposition from major emitters.

In the letter, Jackson set a timeline for phasing in greenhouse gas regulations starting in 2011 with only the largest emitters, and she suggested that federal officials will be looking for fast development of carbon capture and storage technologies, or CCS.

Farm state lawmakers and agribusiness have been hammering the EPA since it announced a plan last year for evaluating biofuels by their lifecycle emissions — including indirect land use changes.

It appeared then that corn-based ethanol wouldn’t make the cut. The proposed rules, based on the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, required renewable fuels’ lifecycle emissions to be at least 20 percent less than gasoline's. An early EPA review calculated that, with greenhouse gases from indirect land-use changes included, most corn ethanol wasn't much better than regular gas.

The EPA has now finalized the renewable fuel standard, and agency Administrator Lisa Jackson announced today that corn ethanol will qualify after all.

“EPA has found that it is indeed 20 percent less greenhouse gas emitting than gasoline,” Jackson said. “Based on what we know now, including indirect land use analysis, there is no basis to exclude these fuels.”

What changed in less than a year?

A storm of Republican protest is erupting over the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that greenhouse gases pose a public danger, with the latest wave coming from a state among those most at risk from the effects of climate change.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, one of the party’s rising stars, launched a letter-writing offensive from Baton Rouge this week to protest the possibility of EPA regulation that the finding now allows. His own letter focuses on the economic dislocation he says such regulation might bring; it doesn’t mention the economic threats climate change poses to costal communities and cities like New Orleans.

The U.S. government officially declared greenhouse gases a danger to public health and welfare today, showing the world and Congress that even if national climate legislation is delayed, the United States can still take action to limit global warming.

Sen. John Kerry, a key negotiator at international climate talks in Copenhagen, called the EPA's finalizing of its endangerment finding “a clear message to Copenhagen of the Obama Administration’s commitment to address global climate change.”

As for lawmakers in Washington, Kerry said,

“The message to Congress is crystal clear: Get moving.

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With the Senate still at loggerheads over climate legislation, the EPA announced Monday that it was moving forward with its greenhouse gas endangerment finding and had sent the final ruling to the Office of Management and Budget for approval.

The final document wasn’t immediately released, but the version that went through a White House review this spring and was open for public comment declared greenhouse gas emissions to be a danger to public health and welfare.

That finding, once official, could open the door for the EPA to issue rules for regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told Reuters in an interview on Monday that the final proposal was sent to the OMB on Friday. The office now has 90 days to act, but Jackson anticipates a quicker response.

"We've briefed them a couple of times. So we're hoping for an expedited review," she said.

California's Arnold Schwarzenegger welcomed fellow governors and mayors from around the world to the second Governors’ Global Climate Summit this week with the goal of involving state and local leaders in collective action to solve the global climate crisis.

This year’s summit hopes to build upon the accomplishments of the first, in 2008, where international leaders signed a memorandum of understanding on reducing greenhouse gases from deforestation and reached preliminary agreements on a number of issues related to climate change.

Schwarzenegger sees the Summit as a leg on the road to Copenhagen. He promised the audience that the findings would be sent to UN negotiators and that he would attend talks in Copenhagen to represent what he is calling a “grassroots” sub-national movement on climate change and the green revolution.

“The 20th Century was fueled by dirty oil, dirty cars and dirty coal,” Schwarzenegger said, imploring leaders to put workers from coal mines into solar panel factories and oil workers into biodiesel refineries.

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When the House passed its version of a federal climate bill in June, lawmakers included a provision to handcuff the Environmental Protection Agency when it came to greenhouse gas emissions from the nation's biggest polluters.

Bowing to demands of coal state Democrats, lawmakers effectively agreed that the agency shall not regulate "stationary sources" for CO2 — in other words, hands off the greenhouse gases from coal plants and large industries.

Today in the Senate, those handcuffs came off. The Senate climate bill introduced by Sens. Barbara Boxer and John Kerry made no mention of restricting EPA authority the way the House version did, and the agency wasted no time in raising both free hands in a move that put it emphatically center stage in the climate game.

Just hours after the roll-out of the Boxer-Kerry bill, EPA issued a press release explaining how it plans to control emissions from big polluters, including new power plants, by establishing common sense regulatory rules. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced the details during a keynote address at the Governors' Global Climate Summit in California.

"We will not continue with business as usual while waiting for Congress to act," Jackson said from the podium.

It was the same Global Climate Summit where last November a newly-elected Barack Obama delivered a videotaped message, vowing U.S. leadership on climate change, and made instant global news.

While today's EPA announcement is not likely to be appreciated worldwide, it does provide evidence of the Obama administration's commitment to climate action ahead of international talks in Copenhagen. It is also an important regulatory development that will help determine whether the U.S. will really be able to reduce domestic industrial emissions of greenhouse gases or not.

Absent EPA authority, large loopholes and handouts in both the Senate and House versions of the climate bill will make it difficult, if not impossible, for the nation to depart from the trajectory of business as usual for decades. That's why one of the fiercest upcoming battles in the partisan war over federal climate law will be over the reach and authority of the EPA in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

For nearly four decades, Earth Day has been a rallying cry to raise global awareness about our responsibility to the planet. It has mobilized millions of people to plant trees, clean up their communities and streams, and really think about how their energy use and actions influence the health of the planet.

This year, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is issuing a challenge to the more than 1 billion people expected to take part in Earth Day activities on April 22. She's urging them to take that ethic beyond a single day by making April into Earth Month, and then stretching it into Earth Year, which would annually renew.

It isn’t impossible, and it isn’t the huge sacrifice that wealthy corporations and their politicians would have people believe.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson isn't wasting any time as she begins untangling the Bush administration's corporate-protectionist policies on greenhouse gases.

This morning, Jackson filed a notice with the Federal Register that she would reconsider the Bush administration's refusal to let California set higher state standards for auto emissions. Once the Federal Register gets that notice down in ink, supporters and opponents will have 60 days to comment, and then Jackson will make her decision.

Jackson promised an impartial review, saying:

It is imperative that we get this decision right, and base it on the best available science and a thorough understanding of the law.

The new EPA administrator is widely expected to approve California’s long-delayed waiver. Last week, President Obama urged his administration to begin taking action to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The administration also today dropped a Bush-era appeal of a ruling in New Jersey v. EPA. The court found that the EPA violated the Clean Air Act when it exempted coal-fired power plants from strict mercury emission controls. Jackson's EPA now plans to develop "appropriate standards" consistent with the ruling.

Next up: The EPA needs to act on a nearly two-year-old U.S. Supreme Court requirement that the Bush administration swept under the rug – making an official determination under the Clean Air Act that greenhouse gases are endangering the public health and welfare.

The attorneys general of 18 states sent a letter to Jackson yesterday asking her to act quickly and decisively on the case. Action could be swift. The attorneys general say the leg work required for advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) is finished and all that remains is the official determination: