Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) is drafting an alternative climate change bill that would set a more modest goal for reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions than pending Senate legislation and preempt California and other state and local governments from enacting their own emissions controls, according to a draft of the bill obtained by BNA April 28.

The Voinovich bill would act as a Republican alternative to Senate legislation being readied for a floor vote in June by the bill's authors, Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I/D-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.).

While the Lieberman-Warner bill (S. 2191) calls for cutting emissions nearly 70 percent by 2050 through an emissions trading system, Voinovich's draft bill, the Incentives-Based Climate Policy Act, proposes less stringent targets--reducing emissions to 2006 levels by 2020 and to 1990 levels by 2030.

While the Environmental Protection Agency would be authorized to implement the targets envisioned by Voinovich, the agency also could delay implementation if it determined in the future that cost-effective technologies had not materialized.

Furthermore, the 49-page Voinovich draft sets out a largely incentives-based approach that would resort to mandatory emissions caps in 2030--but only if tax breaks and the other incentive programs created by the legislation failed to reduce emissions to the target of 1990 levels.

“The mandatory greenhouse emission cap-and-trade program established under this section shall take effect on January 1, 2030, if the incentive programs under” various sections of the bill “fail to make substantial progress toward meeting the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets,” according to the draft, dated April 25.

State Action Preempted.

States such as California, as well as local governments, that have passed legislation setting mandatory emissions cuts in the absence of federal regulation would see those efforts nullified under the Voinovich measure.

States and local governments considering regulating emissions in the future also would be similarly preempted by the Voinovich legislation.

It is unclear how soon the Ohio senator, who serves as the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air, will formally introduce his bill, according to Voinovich spokeswoman Garrett Silverman.

“What I can tell you is that no legislative text has been finalized and the timetable on the senator's bill is fluid at this point,” Silverman told BNA.

The legislative draft also would essentially overturn a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held EPA already has authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions (Massachusetts v. EPA, 127 S. Ct. 1438, 63 ERC 2057 (2007)).

One section in Voinovich's draft states that the agency would have “no authority to regulate carbon dioxide” under the Clean Air Act, effective April 2, 2007--the day before the high court ruled in the case.

The court ruled that the law defines pollutants broadly enough to include carbon dioxide, but said the agency also could refuse to act if it found that such emissions do not contribute to climate change or endanger public health or welfare (63 DEN A-3, 4/3/07).

EPA is expected to publish an advance notice of proposed rulemaking later this spring to gather public input on how to proceed (60 DEN A-11, 3/28/08).

By Dean Scott

Copyright 2008, The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.