The Guardian (Charlottetown)

U.S. Senate rejects rule to cut greenhouse gas emissions on highways

- DAVID SHEPARDSON REUTERS

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate on Wednesday passed a resolution that would overturn a federal agency’s rule requiring states to measure and set declining targets for greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles using the national highway system.

The Federal Highway Administra­tion rules were declared unlawful last month by a federal judge but the decision could be reversed upon appeal.

President Joe Biden’s administra­tion is eager to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 in an effort to avoid potentiall­y catastroph­ic impacts of climate change.

The Senate voted 53-47 in favor of a resolution that would reject the rules, with Democrats Sherrod Brown, Jon Tester and Joe Manchin joining Republican­s. The U.S. House of Representa­tives has yet to vote on the measure.

The White House said Biden would veto the measure if it is sent to him, and Republican­s would almost certainly be unable to muster the votes needed to overturn a veto.

The White House noted the transporta­tion sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, with most coming from vehicles on U.S. roads. In a statement opposing the Senate action, it called the rule “a commonsens­e, good-government tool for transparen­tly managing” emissions from transporta­tion. Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito said the administra­tion lacked authority to write the rules and said the vote is “a clear message to the administra­tion that we will continue to hold them accountabl­e for executive overreach.”

Last month U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, said he agreed with Texas’ lawsuit “the rule was unauthoriz­ed.”

The FHWA has noted it did not mandate how low targets must be and instead gave state transporta­tion department­s flexibilit­y to set targets that were appropriat­e as long as the targets aimed to reduce emissions over time.

The agency said it would assess whether states make significan­t progress toward achieving their targets but the rule does not impose penalties for those who missed their targets.

The FHWA said the rule was “essential” to the Biden administra­tion target of netzero emissions economy-wide by 2050. The final regulation did not require states to set declining targets to align with the 2050 goal. In 2018, the Trump administra­tion repealed a rule issued under former President Barack Obama requiring states to track greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles on highways.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada