EPA moves to regulate smokestack greenhouse gases

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency moved Thursday to more tightly control air pollution from large power plants, factories and oil refineries, a step to limit emissions blamed for global warming and breathing problems for some Americans.

The EPA said it is completing a rule requiring large polluters to reduce the amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that they release. Those emissions can exacerbate asthma and other breathing difficulties, which are worsened by particles in the air.

The rule would require companies to install better technology and improve energy efficiency whenever they build, or significantly modify, a plant.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the rule applies only to large polluters such as power plants, refineries and cement production facilities that collectively are responsible for 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

Jackson said the rule sets commonsense standards that will clean the air and protect public health, while avoiding burdensome regulations that could harm farms and small and medium-sized businesses.

"There is no denying our responsibility to protect the planet for our children and grandchildren," she said in a statement. "It's long past time we unleashed our American ingenuity and started building the efficient, prosperous clean energy economy of the future."

The EPA announcement comes a day after an energy and climate bill was introduced in the Senate that seeks to accomplish many of the same goals. But EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan denied any connection, saying "rules are ready when they are ready."

The pollution rule will take effect in January, when industrial facilities that already obtain Clean Air Act permits for other pollutants will be required to obtain permits for greenhouse gases, if they increase those emissions by at least 75,000 tons per year.

Starting in July 2011, the rule would apply to any existing plant that emits at least 75,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year, or any new plant that emits 100,000 tons per year.

The rule comes as Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., made public a long-delayed bill aimed at curtailing greenhouse gas emissions. The bill introduced on Wednesday would set a first-ever price on carbon dioxide emissions produced by coal-fired power plants and other large polluters.