EPA asserted authority to move forward without new laws from Congress at hearing where contrarian views were on display

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

The Obama administration asserted its authority to move forward on its climate change action plan on Wednesday – with or without new laws from Congress.

In the first airing of Obama's climate plan, a hearing of the House of Representatives was told the Environmental Protection Agency and other government agencies were already authorised to bring in new measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"We are not doing anything at the EPA and in the climate plan that goes outside the boundaries of what Congress has said is our mission and our authority," EPA administrator Gina McCarthy told a hearing of the house sub-committee on energy and power.

McCarthy is expected to reveal a core pillar of that climate plan this week when the EPA proposes new standards for future coal plants.

About a dozen members of the House energy committee deny the science behind climate change, and those contrarian views were on full display on Wednesday.

The energy secretary, Ernest Moniz, a former MIT scientist, spent much of his testimony delivering a primer on climate science to doubtful Republicans.

It did not appear to have any immediate effect, and the Republican climate contrarianism – and by extension resistance to action on climate – indicated the battles ahead for McCarthy and Obama as they move ahead on the plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

Republicans in the last Congress voted 53 times to block climate action, and held up McCarthy's nomination for months.

In light of that, the EPA administrator was told in Wednesday's hearing that Obama's climate plan exhibited disregard for Congress.

However, McCarthy told the hearing: "Many of the programmes that we run are programmes that Congress specifically directed us to run."

Obama moved to bypass Republicans in Congress to act on climate change in a speech last June directing the federal government to use its existing authority to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17% and protect Americans from future climate change.

McCarthy will reveal the first concrete phase of those measures later this week by introducing proposals to regulate carbon pollution from new power plants.

She told the hearing the EPA will introduce proposals for existing coal plants, responsible for about 40% of greenhouse gas emissions, by June of next year. She also said the federal government was moving to reduce methane from natural gas drilling and other industries, which are a fast rising source of emissions.

The success of Obama's climate plan will, in the end, hinge on those new standards – as McCarthy herself implicitly acknowledged. "It is by far the largest industry sector in terms of its generation of greenhouse gases," she said.

Countering Republican charges that Obama's plan would destroy jobs, she went on: "there are opportunities to reduce greenhouse gases that will position us in the energy future."

She also said the Obama plan retained a place for coal generation in an effort to counter Republican charges of a war on coal.

Despite the outreach efforts, however, the hearing soon reverted to familiar battle lines, with Democrats reaffirming the science behind climate change and the urgent need for action, and Republicans firmly in denial.

"It's an appalling record," said California Democrat Henry Waxman, co-author of the last, unsuccessful climate bill. "You are either climate deniers because you don't think anything needs to be done … or you are ignoring the warning of scientists."

Republicans meanwhile accused Obama of trying to hide his climate agenda. Republicans charged Obama officials of ducking the hearing – despite the presence of two cabinet-level officials on Wednesday.

"Are you trying to hide something? Are you embarrassed by it, or you just don't care to respond to Congress?" said Texas Republican Joe Barton. "If the Obama administration has this great climate change programme, you should be able to answer in detail and in glowing terms," he said.

Others disputed scientific findings on global temperature rise, Arctic sea ice, human drivers of climate change, and even whether Obama's plan would be effective in curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

McCarthy admitted the EPA on its own could not deliver all of the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions needed to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.

"Can the EPA alone solve the problem of climate change? No, we cannot," McCarthy said. "We are working within our authority to do what we can."