Comments from the Competitive Enterprise Institute Submitted to EPA Regarding the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Greenhouse Gases Under the Clean Air Act

We are writing to urge EPA not to make an endangerment finding with respect to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under §202 of the Clean Air Act (CAA). A positive finding of endangerment would require EPA to establish first-ever GHG emission standards for new motor vehicles.

Thanks to EPA’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR), several congressional testimonies by attorney Peter Glaser, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s compliance burden report,3 it is now clear that setting GHG emission standards under CAA §202 would trigger a regulatory cascade throughout the Act, imposing potentially crushing burdens on regulated entities and the economy.

For example, any building or facility that has the potential to emit 250 tons per year of carbon dioxide (CO2) would become a “major stationary source” under the Act’s Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) pre-construction permitting program. Obtaining a PSD permit is costly and time-consuming. In 2007, each PSD permit on average cost $125,120 and 866 burden hours for sources to obtain plus $23,280 and 301 hours for state or local agencies to process.4 As the U.S. Chamber Study shows, 1.2 million previously unregulated buildings and facilities actually emit at least 250 tons per year of CO2. All would be vulnerable to new PSD regulation, monitoring, controls, and penalties if EPA establishes GHG emission standards for new motor vehicles.