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.

“I don’t think so,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told the National Journal in response to whether she would comply with the resolution. She argued the moratorium was simply “about messaging” and would give a false impression about taking serious action on reducing the deficit. Sens. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) expressed similar reservations yesterday.

And Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), for her part, attempted to backpedal on her definition of exactly what an earmark is, telling the Minneapolis Star Tribune that transportation projects should be excluded. “I don’t believe that building roads and bridges and interchanges should be considered an earmark,” Bachmann said. “There’s a big difference between funding a tea pot museum and a bridge over a vital waterway.”

On the other side of the aisle, Democratic Sens. Claire McCaskill (Mo.) and Mark Udall (Colo.) have teamed up with Republican Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.) to press for a vote on the Senate floor on the issue. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), however, remains a staunch proponent of earmarking and he has said he’ll block any efforts to have a floor vote on the issue should it be brought up today. He argued the Senate simply doesn’t have enough time to consider the measure right now, but would be open to a vote at another time.

“If [Democrats] bring up a food safety bill, we’re going to have a vote by every member of the Senate on whether or not we believe in earmarks or not,” Coburn said, alluding to a vote on a food safety bill that the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has scheduled for Wednesday. “And the greatest criticism I have for those that want to earmark is that they’re basically lazy. They really do not want to do the hard work of oversighting the federal budget.”

Coburn’s comments were in many ways a rebuttal directed towards his fellow Oklahoman, Sen. James Inhofe (R), who has argued that abstaining from earmarks will simply empower the executive branch and federal bureaucracy to make all the decisions about the way the federal budget gets spent.

“The reason bureaucracies can get away with what they’re going is we aren’t doing our job,” added Cobrun. “We could cut the federal government by a third and nobody would know the difference. There’s that much waste.”

DeMint, for his part, remained optimistic about the chances of his vote passing in Republican conference tomorrow, but he allowed that the secret nature of the vote could cause some members to defect silently. He argued that no conservative, however, can logically stand for limited government and still advocate earmarks.

“If we believe that it’s our job to pave local parking lots and build local sewer plants and museums, then we can’t believe in limited federal government,” he said. “Earmarks are a way for us as Republicans to show that we’ve gotten the message, and also a way to take our eyes off parochial interests and focus on national interests, the general welfare. It’s not our job to be directing money to local projects that don’t have national significance.”

Buck suggested earlier this week that he agrees with Sen. James Inhofe’s (R-Okla.) view that global warming is a hoax, telling a supporters in Colorado, “Sen. Inhofe was the first person to stand up and say this global warming is the greatest hoax that has been perpetrated. The evidence just keeps supporting his view, and more and more people’s view, of what’s going on.” Buck, who is in a tight race with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), has since revised those remarks.

Responding to Buck’s comments, League of Conservation Voters Senior Vice President for Public Affairs Tony Massaro told reporters today on a conference call that the candidate was “backpedaling, or Buck-pedaling,” from his climate positions. “We actually don’t know where he stands because he seems to stand in multiple places at one time depending on who he talks to,” Massaro said. “This is not a person who has consistent values and therefore doesn’t have any values.”

I called Buck’s campaign office got clarification on his position. Owen Loftis, Buck’s spokesperson said, “Ken believes climate change is occurring, but that it’s natural more than man-made.”

Buck has emerged as a top target for environmentalists as the midterm elections approach. Yesterday, the League of Conservation Voters released a web video criticizing him and the environmental group released a television ad targeting him today.

DirtyEnergyMoney.com tracks industry contributions from 1999 to June 2010 based on Federal Election Commission disclosures. The web site was launched by MoveOn, Public Citizen, Greenpeace, Energy Action Coalition, True Majority, 350.org and others.

According to the site, the top five “dirtiest politicians” (those that took the most money from industry) are:

1. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas)

2. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas)

3. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

4. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.)

5. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.)

The site also targets Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who is facing a tough reelection battle this year. Lincoln has accepted $814,882 since 1999, the site says. According to the site:

Arkansas’ Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln seems to have drilled into the largest deposit of dirty campaign cash in the most recent election cycle. What has she done to deserve such generosity? She voted for the Murkowski Big Oil Bailout, a bill that would have gutted clean air protections and increased our oil dependence. She also voted to keep sending our taxpayer money to big oil and gas.

McConnell said he opposed Kagan because he felt she had too extensive a record as a political advocate.

“I do not have confidence that if she were confirmed to a lifetime position on the Supreme Court she would suddenly constrain the ardent political advocacy that has marked much of her adult life,” he said in a press release. “The American people expect a justice who will impartially apply the law, not one who will be a rubberstamp for the Obama administration or any other administration.”

McConnell is the third senator to publicly announce his vote against Kagan. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) announced earlier today that he will vote against Kagan as a member of the Judiciary Committee. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) announced he would oppose Kagan back on May 10 — the day President Obama nominated her.

Elise Foley contributed to this report.

(1)   Expand the pilot program to fully deploy eGuardian as the DoD-wide force protection threat reporting system to handle suspicious incident activities. The eGuardian system, which is FBI-owned and maintained, will safeguard civil liberties, while enabling information sharing among Federal, State, local, and tribal law enforcement partners, including interagency fusion centers.

(2) Complete the deployment of the Law Enforcement Defense Data Exchange system (D-DEx) allowing all DoD law enforcement agencies to share criminal investigation as well as other law enforcement data as appropriate. D-DEx will be a consolidated database to enable organizations across the Department to query, retrieve, and post criminal investigation and law enforcement data in a single repository.

(3) Establish the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs as the DoD lead for the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force program.

(4) Strengthen DoD’s antiterrorism training program by incorporating lessons learned from the Fort Hood incident, Department of Homeland Security best practices on workplace violence, and civilian law enforcement active shooter awareness training.

This won’t satisfy the likes of Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who wanted Muslim soldiers singled out as extremist risk threats. “I believe in racial and ethnic profiling,” Inhofe confessed during a January hearing about the Fort Hood investigation.

Anonymous administration officials previewed a policy shift to The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times that will stop citizenry-based targeting and move to passengers whose travel patterns or identifying information matches even fragmentary intelligence reports about potential terrorist activity. Those officials describe the new extra-screening system as “much more intel-based.” The Los Angeles Times explains that the standards employed will not require fulsome or exacting matches between an air traveler and a pattern of suspicious behavior to kick in:

In many cases, the U.S. might learn of a possible attack by someone about whom it has only fragmentary information — a partial name, nationality, certain facial features or details about recent travel.

Such information will be forwarded to airlines and foreign governments by the Department of Homeland Security as it is received and will be used to guide them in deciding which travelers to subject to special screening, the official said.

That’s clearly intended to be responsive to the failure in stopping Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from boarding flight 253. There was a fair amount of fragmentary intelligence about both Abdulmutallab himself — including fragments of his name — as well as intelligence about the sort of person al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was considering for a terror attack. Part of the problem was that information about Abdulmutallab didn’t meet the standard of “specific derogatory information leading to reasonable suspicion” necessary for placing him on the prelude to the no-fly list. These measures wouldn’t require such specificity for singling out an air passenger for screening.

One issue worth considering: during the January wave of congressional hearings on what went wrong in the Abdulmutallab case, officials testified that there are still basic problems accessing the various government watchlists, including a persistent difficulty with actually performing basic search functions that Google can perform in microseconds. If that remains the case, how likely will it be that the DHS officials charged with performing the new airport scrutiny will possess the relevant intelligence necessary for determining who should qualify for special screening?

“I appreciate the President’s apparent willingness to consider offshore drilling as part of the Administration’s energy policy,” Senator Inhofe said. “Time will tell as to whether Obama is really ready to embrace offshore drilling or simply wanting to look like he is.

“As I have said, we can make great strides toward increasing North American energy independence by developing our own domestic resources. We can do this and support millions of American jobs, produce affordable energy for consumers, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”

But of course he makes sure to get in a good jab:

“It also appears President Obama is caught in a contradiction: the President is, on the one hand, pushing forward with global warming policies to make fossil fuels more expensive, while on the other hand, he’s talking about drilling for more fossil fuels offshore. How does the President square these two policies?”

The short answer, as the president pointed out in his speech at Andrews Air Force Base this morning, is that American oil reserves are a drop in the bucket compared with our fuel needs. This move won’t bring down fuel prices at all in the short term, and it’ll barely make a dent in the long term.

I’m, for one — I know it’s not politically correct to say it — I believe in racial and ethnic profiling. I think if you’re looking at people getting on an airplane and you have X amount of resources to get into it, you get at the targets, and not my wife. And I just think it’s something that should be looked into. The statement that’s made, it’s probably 90 percent true with some exceptions like the Murrah federal office building in my state, Oklahoma. Those people, they were not Muslims, they were not Middle Easterners. But when you hear that not all Middle Easterners or Muslims between the age of 20 and 35 are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims or Middle Easterners between the age of 20 and 35, that’s by and large true. And I think that sometime we’re going to have to — at least, I’m going to have to have a better answer than I give the people back home, when people board planes or get into environments such as the environment we’re dealing with with this report.

Funny thing. There are some Bush administration officials who think profiling is not just disgusting but stupid:

Bush administration officials Michael Chertoff and Mike Hayden publicly oppose profiling. Abdulmutallab “would not have automatically fit a profile if you were standing next to him in the visa line at Dulles,” Hadyen, a former CIA and NSA director, said on ‘Meet The Press’ on Jan. 3. “One of the things al-Qaeda’s done is deliberately tried to recruit people who don’t fit the stereotype, who are Western in background or appearance,” Chertoff, a former secretary of Homeland Security, said on the same program.