As head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Jackson has faced harsh criticism from House Republicans and GOP presidential candidates who say the agency’s regulations are an undue burden on businesses that have to cut jobs simply to comply with clean water and air rules. Presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann has pledged to end the EPA if she takes office.

“Since the beginning of this year, Republicans in the House have averaged roughly a vote every day the chamber has been in session to undermine the Environmental Protection Agency and our nation’s environmental laws,” writes Jackson. “They have picked up the pace recently – just last week they voted to stop the EPA’s efforts to limit mercury and other hazardous pollutants from cement plants, boilers and incinerators – and it appears their campaign will continue for the foreseeable future.”

In Florida, attacks on Jackson and the agency she represents have been especially harsh.

The agency has mandated a set of Florida-specific water pollution standards that are being decried as “unfair” and “burdensome” by lawmakers and industry alike. Companies that would be forced to comply with the rules have been especially hard on the agency and have fiercely campaigned against their implementation. In his criticism of the rules, Associated Industries of Florida CEO Barney Bishop even went so far as to say Jackson “thinks she talks to God and she’s the only one who knows exactly what is the right thing to do about our environment.”

From Jackson’s op-ed:

Using the economy as cover, and repeating unfounded claims that “regulations kill jobs,” they have pushed through an unprecedented rollback of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and our nation’s waste-disposal laws, all of which have successfully protected our families for decades. We all remember “too big to fail”; this pseudo jobs plan to protect polluters might well be called “too dirty to fail.”

The House has voted on provisions that, if they became law, would give big polluters a pass in complying with the standards that more than half of the power plants across the country already meet. The measures would indefinitely delay sensible upgrades to reduce air pollution from industrial boilers located in highly populated areas. And they would remove vital federal water protections, exposing treasured resources such as the Gulf of Mexico, Lake Erie, the Chesapeake Bay and the Los Angeles River to pollution.

How we respond to this assault on our environmental and public health protections will mean the difference between sickness and health – in some cases, life and death – for hundreds of thousands of citizens.

This is not hyperbole. The link between health issues and pollution is irrefutable. Mercury is a neurotoxin that affects brain development in unborn children and young people. Lead has similar effects in our bodies. Soot, composed of particles smaller across than a human hair, is formed when fuels are burned and is a direct cause of premature death. Nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds contribute to the ozone alert days when seniors, asthmatics and others with respiratory problems are at serious risk if they do nothing more dangerous than step outside and breathe the air.

The bill, H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, was sponsored by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.). Its stated purpose:

To amend the Clean Air Act to prohibit the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from promulgating any regulation concerning, taking action relating to, or taking into consideration the emission of a greenhouse gas to address climate change, and for other purposes.

The measure now goes to to the U.S. Senate for a vote, where it needs a two-thirds majority of support to pass. The Senate voted down similar legislation on Wednesday.

The Administrator may not, under this Act, promulgate any regulation concerning, take action relating to, or take into consideration the emission of a greenhouse gas to address climate change.

And the number of substances it prevents the EPA from regulating is long and nearly without limit:

‘(1) Water vapor.
‘(2) Carbon dioxide.
‘(3) Methane.
‘(4) Nitrous oxide.
‘(5) Sulfur hexafluoride.
‘(6) Hydrofluorocarbons.
‘(7) Perfluorocarbons.
‘(8) Any other substance subject to, or proposed to be subject to, regulation, action, or consideration under this Act to address climate change.

The EPA can’t even take into consideration the emission of greenhouse gases or climate change in making any regulation, with a few listed exceptions for already existing regulation. Stabenow’s amendment would limit this restriction to a two-year period. The ALA letter rejects even temporary restrictions:

By blocking the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) authority to update clean air standards, each of the above amendments, in its own way, will weaken the Clean Air Act.

If passed by Congress, these amendments would interfere with EPA’s ability to implement the Clean Air Act; a law that protects public health and reduces health care costs for all by preventing thousands of adverse health outcomes, including: cancer, asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes, emergency department visits, hospitalizations and premature deaths.

As far as introducing new legislation, Rubio has been fairly quiet. So far, he has been responsible for one piece of legislation, an amendment to an air traffic control bill that would prevent the expansion of flight itineraries in countries that sponsor terrorism. Since becoming a senator in January, Rubio has voted in opposition of the implementation of health care reform through a number of resolutions and amendments, and has voted for extending provisions of the PATRIOT Act and blocking Transportation Security Administration employees from collective bargaining (of course, the involvement of the Koch brothers in the national fight over collective bargaining is well documented). That’s the extent of his U.S. Senate voting record, but he’s been vocal about his support for other bills, and it’s there that his benefit to Koch Industries comes into focus.

Koch Industries has three major operations in Florida: Georgia-Pacific, Flint Hills Resources and Koch Chemical Technology Group. Of those, the paper company Georgia-Pacific has come into the most heated conflict with environmental regulations. Flint Hills is an oil refinery operation that has been fined by the Environmental Protection Agency for violations of the Clean Air Act in the past, though it was also commended by the EPA in 2005 for cutting emissions. Koch Chemical Technology primarily makes pollution control equipment that can be used to ensure compliance with EPA regulations.

Rubio has stated his opposition to cap-and-trade regulations that would reward companies for limiting emissions and tax those that don’t. Cap and trade could have a major impact on the Flint Hills operation in Rubio’s backyard, but it could have even larger repercussions for Koch Industries outfits in other states. Koch Industries has spent hundreds of millions in the past in fines for EPA violations and costs incurred in bringing factories up to emissions standards.

And as a pitched battle continues to heat up in Florida over Georgia-Pacific’s objections to EPA water standards, Rubio has made known his opposition to the same. The sugar conglomerate Flo-Sun, another major backer of Rubio’s campaign, has also had its own battles with the EPA over water pollution standards. Rubio has couched his opposition to regulations in terms of job creation, but opponents have argued that failing to enact environment regulations could ultimately cost jobs for Florida in some of its flagship industries (more on that later).

It’s unclear how Rubio’s constituents feel about his vigorous opposition to EPA regulation, as no polls have been conducted by an independent body to find out. The only poll available is one showing 68 percent of Floridians and climbing oppose EPA water regulations; however, the poll simply asked if Floridians would oppose water quality regulations if they resulted in a $700 increase in the average home water bill. That number was based on industry estimates of industrial wastewater regulation costs that the EPA has disputed.

In November, the Florida Independent obtained an internal email from Phil Coram, a deputy director of water resource management with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Coram stated that industry estimates were overblown because they were based on the wrong assumption that all wastewater sites would have to comply with regulations; that they left out the fact that many companies would have cheaper options than expensive conversions for managing their wastewater; and that “some of their math is wrong.” This is coming from within a state agency that has itself been accused of kowtowing to industry interests.

On Rubio’s own site, he uses a Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services figure stating that the wastewater regulations in question would cost over $1.1 billion annually. Such an annual cost, though a great deal higher than EPA estimates, would result in an annual water bill increase of around $157 if divided evenly among all households in Florida — far lower than $700, but even the lower figure doesn’t account for the fact that industrial facilities use a lot more water than individuals, nor does it account for the vast number of seasonal households in Florida whose owners live elsewhere for large parts of the year. Indeed, the EPA figures reported by the St. Johns Riverkeeper may not be far off: an increase more on the order of $40 to $71 a year for the average taxpayer.

Meanwhile, the Florida Independent today reports that failing to implement wastewater regulations would result in a proliferation of toxic algae that would have devastating effects. The brunt of these effects would be felt by individuals living near waterways and by small businesses in the food, hospitality and tourism industries that stake their livelihoods on the integrity of Florida’s environment.

Gardner, a co-sponsor of legislation meant to block the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions in order to limit the effects of climate change, questioned EPA administrator Lisa Jackson last week during a hearing before the House Energy and Power Subcommittee.

“The reason cap and trade didn’t pass is because it would have been detrimental to our economy and job creation, so for the administration to now try and usurp Congress by using the EPA is just unacceptable,” Gardner said in a release.

The EPA late last year announced it will propose new standards for new and refurbished power plants by July, with final rules coming in May of 2012. New standards for new oil refineries will come out in December, with the final rules expected by November of 2012.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2007 ruled that greenhouse gases are pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act, and in 2009 the EPA release two findings allowing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. Climate change legislation, including cap and trade, passed the House in 2009 but came up short in the Senate in 2010.

Efforts to undercut the EPA regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act will also likely die in the Senate. Democratic Colorado Sen. Mark Udall has started a petition drive to thwart the anti-EPA push.

“Anti-environment legislators introduced bills to restrict the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate carbon — legislation that flies in the face of directives from the U.S. Supreme Court and threatens our progress toward a clean energy future,” Udall said. “I’ll be delivering a petition to the chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. Barbara Boxer, at the end of the month, and we need it to be a strong statement of opposition to these bills.”

A poll commissioned by the National Resources Defenses Council found that 61 percent of those surveyed in Gardner’s largely rural 4th Congressional District in northern Colorado oppose the “Energy Tax Prevention Act” proposal from Michigan Republican Fred Upton “that would block the EPA from limiting carbon dioxide pollution.” Another 55 percent favor “the EPA setting new standards with stricter limits on air pollution,” according to the poll.

The NRDC also found Gardner, a freshman, has taken $29,500 in campaign contributions from oil and gas companies, utilities, coal and mining interests, and that there are more than 80,000 people in his district suffering from asthma, which health care officials say is exacerbated by air pollution.

Jackson told the subcommittee that the Clean Air Act has prevented more than 205,000 deaths since 1990. But Gardner ripped her for claiming “the economy in rural America is strong enough to withstand burdensome regulations.”

“Families in rural areas are facing challenges like everyone else, and I would know because I grew up in a town of only 3,200 people.” Gardner said. “When something becomes more expensive, like the utility bill, it hurts those families most.”

He invited Jackson to visit his district and “familiarize herself with the realities of rural America.” Gardner is a former state legislator with a long history of advocating for the oil and gas industry. Last year, in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, he was the beneficiary of a fundraiser hosted by a British Petroleum lobbyist.

And in Colorado in 2008 he signed the Energy Action Plan put out by a pro-energy nonprofit called the Western Skies Coalition. The political advocacy group used petroleum industry dollars in an attempt to elect Republican state lawmakers and retake the state Senate.

Gardner last November beat out incumbent Democrat Betsy Markey, who voted for the climate change bill and was singled out by President Barack Obama as a blue dog Democrat who took a courageous vote in a largely conservative district.

Colorado renewable energy advocates point to the economic upside – in addition to the health benefits – of policies that restrict carbon emissions and reward cleaner forms of energy. Colorado has added 17,000 jobs in the clean-energy sector over the last several years, and a new study by the University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute, entitled, “New Jobs – Cleaner Air,” concluded that the new EPA air pollution rules would create up to 1.46 million American jobs (pdf).

“This report echoes what Coloradans already know,” said Gary Wockner of Fort Collins-based Clean Water Action, “Clean air creates jobs and protects the economy and public health; dirty air costs jobs and threatens the economy and public health. Supporting the EPA and the Clean Air Act is good for people, good for our environment, and good for our economy.”

At a heated Wednesday hearing by the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power EPA Director Lisa Jackson was questioned for hours about the impact of new Clean Air Act regulations on business.

Since the beginning of the year, EPA has required industry to report their CO2 emissions, and major new sources of pollution are required to conduct an analysis of the “Best Available Control Technology” for reducing CO2 emissions. EPA has also announced that it will propose greenhouse gas standards for utilities and refineries this year and finalize them next year.

“Let’s face it,” said House Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), “these regulations and others from EPA amount to a war on domestic coal. Coal is the energy source America possesses in the greatest abundance. It provides half the nation’s electricity and 92 percent in my home state of Kentucky, and it does so because it is affordable.”

Whitfield, together with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) ranking member of the Senate Committee On Environment and Public Works, are the sponsors of the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011.

The bill states:

The Administrator may not, under [the Clean Air Act], promulgate any regulation concerning, take action relating to, or take into consideration the emission of a greenhouse gas due to concerns regarding possible climate change.

In her testimony, Jackson called the Clean Air Act a public health measure that has prevented 205,000 deaths since 1990, and she said that the agency move to regulate greenhouse gas emissions was a necessary science-based decision aimed at protecting the country from the public health threat that is climate change.

Jackson also pointed out that EPA’s responsibility to regulate carbon emissions was acknowledged (PDF) by her predecessor in the Bush administration.

“Chairman Upton’s bill would, in its own words, ‘repeal’ the scientific finding regarding greenhouse gas emissions, she said. “Politicians overruling scientists on a scientific question — that would become part of this committee’s legacy.”

But many lawmakers and witnesses at the hearing seemed comfortable with such a legacy.

Any EPA regulation of greenhouse gases will be “all pain and no gain” said Rep. Inhofe. “[I]t is unfair and unacceptable to ask the steel worker in Ohio, the chemical plant worker in Michigan, and the coal miner in West Virginia to sacrifice their jobs so we can reduce temperature by a barely detectable amount in 100 years.”

Nucor Steel environmental manager Steve Rowlan told the committee that uncertainly about greenhouse gas rules caused his company to scale down a new iron facility in Louisiana.

The impact of these new regulations on capital projects is real. We recently received a permit, under the new GHG rules, for a direct reduced iron facility in Louisiana. This is a $750 million project that will create 500 construction jobs and 150 permanent ones. It is a great job-creating investment, particularly in this economy. But this project is not as large as the $2 billion investment we initially intended. Due to the uncertainty created by these regulations, we made the difficult decision to delay the $2 billion investment, also delaying the creation of 2,000 construction jobs and 500 permanent ones.

Rowlan said that his biggest concern is that future EPA carbon regulations could increase the cost of electricity.

“Cheap energy is lifeblood of industry,” he said in an interview with The American Independent. “You always hear people say, ‘We need clean green power’ well we need ‘Clean, green, affordable and reliable power.’”

Steve Cousins, vice president of Lion Oil of El Dorado, Ark., told the committee that he is troubled by the EPA requirement that any expansion of refinery operations involve implementation of best available control technology for greenhouse gas emissions.

“It is unclear what technology constitutes BACT,“ he said. “EPA’s federal guidance on what defines BACT is far too broad and confusing regarding what measures our refinery would be able to employ to control emissions, and whether permits would actually be approved and issued in certain circumstances.”

U.S. Steel Corporation environmental manager Fred Harnack said that EPA carbon rules will not reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

Since greenhouse gas emissions are a complex global issue, a simplistic regulatory approach may reduce greenhouse gas emissions locally (in United States) while increasing emissions outside the United States by encouraging companies to move or expand operations to another country. As demonstrated by the United Kingdom’s example, energy-intensive manufacturing activity will decline, but consumer demand for energy-intensive goods will still grow. The net environmental effect of such is actually worse for the environment as goods are sourced from less efficient producers and additional long-distance transportation is required.

In a memo (PDF) to Democratic members of the Energy and Power Subcommittee, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), ranking member of the Energy and Power Subcommittee, said that the Upton bill would threaten implementation of renewable fuel standards and create legal uncertainty about the status of the recent motor vehicle standards adopted by EPA.

An ORC International poll conducted earlier this month found the 63 percent of people — including most Republicans — believe the EPA needs to do more to hold polluters accountable and protect the air and water.

That survey found that only 18 percent of Americans believe that Congress should block the EPA from updating pollution safeguards.

Among the key findings of the poll:

Americans want the EPA to do more, not less. Almost two thirds of Americans (63 percent) say “the EPA needs to do more to hold polluters accountable and protect the air and water,” versus under a third (29 percent) who think the EPA already “does too much and places too many costly restrictions on businesses and individuals.” Well under half of Republicans (44 percent), less than a third of Independents (29 percent) and under a fifth of Democrats (16 percent) think the EPA is going too far today.

Americans do not want Congress to kill the EPA’s anti-pollution updates. Only 18 percent of Americans – including fewer than a third of Republicans (32 percent) — believe that “Congress should block the EPA from updating pollution safeguards,” after being told: “Some members of Congress are proposing to block the Environmental Protection Agency from updating safeguards to protect our health from dangerous air pollution, saying they will cost businesses too much money.” By contrast, more than three out of four Americans (77 percent) — including 61 percent of Republicans – say “Congress (should) let the EPA do its job.”

House Republican leaders are expected today to unveil new legislation aimed at blocking EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.

The EPA guidance comes as the agency is preparing to require in January, for the first time, that new large facilities or facilities that need significant modifications implement Best Available Control Technologies, or BACT, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

The new guidance does not require that states or local permitting authorities use a specific type of method for reducing emissions, but the EPA said in a statement today that it “anticipates that, in most cases, this process will show that the most cost effective way for industry to reduce GHG emissions will be through energy efficiency.”

Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office Air and Radiation, said in the statement:

To identify GHG reduction options, EPA and the states are now ready to apply the same time-tested process they have used for other pollutants. This shows that the Clean Air Act can be used to reduce these gases in a cost effective way.

Industry has been critical of the upcoming BACT requirements, arguing that they will impose prohibitive costs on building new facilities. On a conference call with reporters today, McCarthy said the requirements “will not significantly add to the burden or the timeline or the cost.”

The Sierra Club has worked for six months to determine how to reduce the United States' oil dependence. (Flickr, The Sierra Club)

Despite the Gulf oil spill, a massive pipeline break in Michigan and broad concerns about global warming, ambitious climate-change and energy legislation is likely dead for the year. That poses a conundrum, going forward, for environmentalists: How to convince lawmakers of the need for legislation to sever the country’s decades-long ties to oil and to reform energy policy more generally?

[Environment1] The Sierra Club is in the process of trying to answer that question. For the past six months, it has worked on a massive study on how to reduce the United States’ oil dependence in an economically and environmentally beneficial way. The group is also building a coalition of environmental advocates and lawmakers to support the project, which will quantify potential oil-use reductions across every industrial sector.

“Over the next 20 years, how steep can we make cuts in oil consumption while allowing the economy to flourish and while creating more jobs rather than penalizing individual workers or communities?” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune asked. “So, this will be a major priority of the club over the next several years — to build a broad based coalition of organizations and elected officials who will want to stand up for a very thoughtful and pragmatic, but visionary and aggressive plan to get off oil.”

In an interview with The Washington Independent, Brune, who took over his post just one month before the oil spill started, outlines the organization’s oil study, talks about the prospects for energy legislation and previews the upcoming mid-term elections.

Here is an edited-down version of our interview:

What is the major issue going forward for the Sierra Club right now?
Our top issue remains fighting climate change in a way that increases the availability of clean energy like solar and wind, while also improving the public health benefits associated with decreasing our reliance on fossil fuels.

Is the focus now on Environmental Protection Agency regulations, Congress or both?
I would say both for sure. We see great opportunity in EPA rulemakings to increase public health benefits by forcing utilities in particular to account for the cost of their pollution. A top priority right now is organizing around EPA’s hearings on coal ash, to make sure that coal ash is treated as a hazardous waste. But, over the next couple of years, we’ll be looking at a whole series of rulemakings, many of which are focused on stationary sources like coal plants, but we’re also looking at EPA rulemakings to cut our dependence on oil.

Is there a serious concern about challenges to EPA’s regulatory authority under the Clean Air Act going forward?
Yeah, certainly many threats have been made to EPA’s authority to act under the Clean Air Act, attempts either to gut the Clean Air Act or eliminate EPA’s authority. So, we’re taking those threats very seriously. We also think that should there be a public debate about these issues that the public overwhelmingly supports strong, effective and cost-effective regulations that have come out of the EPA for the last 40 years under the Clean Air Act. We think there’s broad public support for retaining its authority.

In terms of Congress, it doesn’t seem that anything is going to happen on cap-and-trade any time soon. Is that your thinking as well?
Well, you know, I think it is difficult to predict too far into the future. We think Congress should act. We know that members were put into office with the expectation that there would be a meaningful, substantive response to climate change and that Congress would enact laws that would put a down payment on scaling up clean energy. So, we know that the demand is there. But whether or not senators in particular will respond remains to be seen.

Putting aside cap-and-trade, there’s been talk of a narrower energy bill. It looks like Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Sen. Brownback  (R-Kans.) are introducing a renewable energy standard that they are hoping to get passed. Is there a specific RES target that you would like to see or is it that the policy needs to move forward as soon as possible?
Well, let me make a general point. There was far too much of a focus earlier this spring on a single bill to address climate change economy-wide. And, in reality, there are dozens of things that Congress can do to fight climate change and to increase energy security in the country. In regards to this particular RES bill, our focus is primarily on keeping it clean. We want to see a renewable energy standard that is focused on truly clean energy and doesn’t have absurd giveways to nuclear power or so-called clean coal or any one of the other handful of options. And then of course to increase those investments as quickly as possible.

Is there a number that’s being thrown around among your members now?
Yeah, but it’s not something I really want to discuss in the public right now.

What other things are you focusing on in Congress?
I’d say the top thing is a plan to get off oil. We just experienced the largest environmental disaster in our country’s history and in response, Congress has done nothing. There’s not even a plan to fully reform what used to be called MMS and there’s not yet a plan to hold oil companies fully accountable and to lift the liability cap. And most importantly, there’s no effective plan right now to significantly reduce our dependence on foreign oil. So, if there’s one thing that Congress can do in the next couple of months, it would be to challenge the oil industry and deliver us a plan to get off oil.

It’s been sort of an uphill battle trying to get an oil spill response bill to pass, something that is incredibly popular with the American people. And you’re right, it seems like the bill is getting held up on this idea of liability, whether or not an oil company should be held 100 percent liable for spilling thousands of gallons of oil into the ocean. What are your thoughts on that?
We shouldn’t be privatizing the gain and sharing the risk with the public. If oil companies are going to be benefiting from oil drilling, they also have to be able to absorb any of the risks associated with drilling.

Do you expect that Congress will pass an oil spill bill this year?
We do.

I wanted to also touch on the mid-term elections. It’s on everybody’s mind right now. What is the Sierra Club doing in terms of working with individual candidates?
So, there’s lots that we’re doing. The Sierra Club has 1.4 million members and supporters, so over the next several weeks, a big job of ours will be to educate our supporters about what’s at stake Nov. 2., trying to get people out to the polls and to engage our members to become volunteers. So, the Sierra Club endorses specific candidates.

We get very heavily involved in local and state propositions. Arguably our biggest priority this year is to defeat Prop 23, which would undermine the Global Warming Solutions Act, AB32, that was passed in California a few years ago. With that, we’re doing a massive voter mobilization drive. Individual members will be calling voters to encourage them to get out. We are also part of a coalition of groups that is doing advertising, thought we’re not doing any ourselves.

Are there any other races that are of particular concern for you?
We’re looking at the Senate races in Nevada and Missouri. Obviously, Harry Reid has been excellent in fighting the coal industry as well as supporting big investments in clean energy. We are also looking at the Florida race. Democratic Senate candidate Meek has a 100 percent League of Conservation Voting score. He’s been strongly in favor of Florida’s solar bills as well as the ban on offshore oil drilling. There’s obviously dozens or even hundreds of races in which the environmental voice is an important one.

There has been a lot said by the oil industry and Gulf coast lawmakers about the Obama administration’s offshore drilling moratorium’s impact on jobs, though there was a report that came out last week that said job losses might not be quite what people estimated. What’s the Sierra Club’s position on all of this? Should the moratorium be lifted?
No, I think that a full moratorium should be put in place. We’re mindful of the fact that we need to make stronger investments in clean energy jobs so that those who work in the oil industry who want to put food on the table for their families have viable alternatives in growing industries that they can work in.

To be clear, we’re not advocating turning off the spigot in the Gulf. There are more than 4,0000 rigs operating in the Gulf right now and we are not saying there should be no oil drilling in the Gulf, not until we have a clear plan to get off oil. But what we’re saying is that since it’s been proven now that oil drilling offshore is dirty and it’s dangerous and it’s deadly, we need to tighten up the safety regulations to make sure that disasters like this don’t happen in the future. And we need to stop investing in exploring for new oil and instead explore much more carefully and aggressively investments in solar and wind so that we’re not poisoning our coastlines as we’re trying to keep our lights on.

On pipeline safety. There have been a couple major disasters this year. Of course, the natural gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, Calif. And before that there was an oil spill in Michigan from an oil sands pipeline. Looming over this you have a massive proposed pipeline project, the Keystone XL project, that is going to go from Canada to Texas. Has the Sierra Club been looking at the issue of pipeline safety through a new set of eyes now that we’ve had these disasters?
Yes, we have. There’s two things that we’re doing. Clearly, the cost of our reliance on oil — when you talk abut the Michigan spill, the Gulf oil spill and the Keystone pipeline — is so much higher than what we pay at the pump when you consider the foreign policy implications, the fact that our entire economy is held hostage to wild fluctuations in oil prices.

So, what we’ve done over the last six months since I started at the Sierra Club is to build out a much more aggressive, comprehensive plan for how our country can get off oil. Over the next 20 years, how steep can we make cuts in oil consumption while allowing the economy to flourish and while creating more jobs rather than penalizing individual workers or communities. So, this will be a major priority of the club over the next several years — to build a broad based coalition of organizations and elected officials who will want to stand up for a very thoughtful and pragmatic, but visionary and aggressive plan to get off oil.

And then, regarding natural gas, we don’t think we can simultaneously phase out coal, oil and gas at the same time. Gas will need to stick around for a while. But there the challenge is to have much higher and much tighter safety standards so we’re not in this disastrous position again and again and again where people are losing their lives due to an industry is ineffectively regulated.

On oil sands or, as some call them, tar sands. There were senators in Canada last week reviewing oil sands production in there. Is there a message you would like to send to them in terms of how oil sands should be treated? Because there’s an argument out there that it’s better to get oil from Canada, despite the high greenhouse gas emissions of oil sands production, because we’re no longer reliant on the Middle East.
I think that’s just misguided thinking. The Pentagon says that climate change is one of the top national security threats in the 21st century. We have to deal effectively with climate change. Importing oil from the tar sands is 2-3 times more greenhouse gas intensive than conventional oil. You don’t solve a problem by making it worse. So, I understand that the notion that we have oil that is under the sands of our neighbors to the north is attractive to people who think we can have a simply pipeline solve a lot of problems. But the reality is that if we rely too much on a different source of oil that is dirtier, that will accelerate climate change rather than reduce it’s impacts, we’re only going to be replacing one set of problems with an entirely different set of problems. The only effective way to address this problem systemically is to adopt a plan to get America off oil.

Can you be more specific about this plan?
We’ll have a plan that we can introduce probably in the next 3-6 months. It looks at every major industrial source of oil consumption, from the oil that’s used in medium- and heavy-duty trucks, light trucks, cars and SUVs, the oil used for pesticides and paints. Whatever the major source of consumption is, we’re looking at a major, comprehensive plan to phase it out where and whenever possible.

What’s the time frame of this phase-out?
The big challenge is political will. For example, clearly it is technically possible, one would presume, to produce nothing but plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles in the next couple years. Whether that’s politically possible, of course remains to be seen. If the United States were to mobilize as we did in World War II and completely transition the entire automobile fleet to produce a new technology, clearly that could be done.

What we need to do is measure the distance between what we can do and what we’re willing to do as a country and develop what we feel as responsible and pragmatic, but also aggressive tactics to achieve energy independence. To help inform that decision we would look at the cost of different decisions under different time scenarios, the benefits economically, environmentally or socially depending on our foreign policy and what would the oil savings be in real-world terms. Then we’d highlight a few different options. We’ll have the data shortly. Then we’ll figure out how to use it. We’ve commissioned this first study just as the Sierra Club, but we anticipate doing more with a broad coalition.

What is the Clean Air Act, and why does it matter?

The Clean Air Act was passed in 1963 and has been significantly amended over the last several decades, with the last major changes coming in 1990. The law is long and complicated, but its overall goal is to protect human health from pollutants in the air. (For the wonks among us, the Environmental Protection Agency has a copy of the act, with all its various amendments, here.)

The act is significant for its many successes. Remember the hole in the ozone layer that we heard so much about in the ’90s? The act essentially banned the use of chemicals that deplete ozone, and scientists now say that, though it will take decades for the ozone layer to return to normal, its depletion is slowing.

Why can the Obama administration regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the act?

The Clean Air Act wasn’t written with greenhouse gases in mind, but in a 2007 decision, the Supreme Court found that EPA could regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the act’s authority. In fact, if the agency determined these sorts of emissions endangered public health, it would have a legal obligation to regulate them, according to the court’s interpretation of the law.

In its so-called endangerment finding, EPA concluded that greenhouse gas emissions do indeed threaten public health. According to the court’s decision, that finding compelled the agency to regulate the emissions.

Though the White House has stated its preference to deal with climate change in Congress, administration officials have said they will move forward with regulation under the Clean Air Act if lawmakers are unable to pass climate legislation. As I’ve reported countless times here, there is about a zero percent chance that the Senate will pass climate legislation that puts a cap on carbon pollution this year. And, depending on the outcome of the mid-term election, it will be an uphill battle next year too.

Who is threatening the Obama administration’s authority under the act, and why?

EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act is the nightmare scenario for Republicans and many Democrats, who see regulation under the act as much more complicated than passing legislation to address the issue. But Republicans and moderate Democrats clearly did not see the threat of EPA regulation as reason enough to vote for a cap-and-trade bill: they have come to an impasse with their more liberal counterparts on the legislation.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) tried and failed to pass a resolution that would have essentially blocked the administration from regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, but the Senate rejected the measure in June. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) has also emerged as a major player in the debate, offering his own bill to delay EPA’s action.

Now, on to this week’s developments:

• Early this week, a number of press reports said a Senate Appropriations Committee mark-up of an EPA and Interior Department appropriations bill could give lawmakers an opportunity to block EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. The reports suggested that an amendment blocking or delaying the EPA regulation could pass.
• On Tuesday, the Appropriations Committee canceled the markup of the EPA/Interior appropriations bill.
• Speculation then turned to Rockefeller, who said that there will be a vote this year on his measure to delay by two years EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The time frame for a vote is unclear.
• Now, Politico and others are reporting that Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) could offer Rockefeller’s proposal as an amendment to the defense authorization bill.

Looming over all of this are the administration’s efforts to move forward on greenhouse gas regulations. In fact, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said this week that she plans to issue guidance on the regulations soon.