House panel votes to block EPA on emissions

The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 34-19 Tuesday to approve legislation that would block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions and repeal new clean air mandates for refineries.The House is set to consider the EPA-blocking bill before its Easter recess next month. Senate leaders signaled Tuesday that a similar proposal could be voted on as early as next week. Even if both congressional chambers passed the legislation and sent it to the White House, President Barack Obama would likely veto it.  The legislation, sponsored by committee chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., would block the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide and six other greenhouse gas emissions. It would repeal a host of related agency mandates, including a just-implemented requirement that companies secure greenhouse gas permits before building or modifying power plants and refineries. The measure also would undo the EPA’s 2009 determination that greenhouse gas emissions threaten the public health and welfare, the legal underpinning for the agency’s regulation of the substances under the Clean Air Act...more