US EPA willing to cede offset authority: administrator

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson said her agency is willing to collaborate with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on an offset programme in a future US carbon market.

“At the end of the day, the importance of any carbon offset programme is to actually reduce carbon, and I think that there needs to be an important relationship (between USDA and EPA),” Jackson told reporters Tuesday at an energy efficiency forum in Washington. 

Jackson made the remarks as Henry Waxman, the leader of the House of Representatives energy committee, is trying to reach a compromise on his climate change bill with Collin Peterson, the chairman of the agriculture committee. 

Waxman needs the support of Peterson and congressmen from agricultural states to ensure passage of the Waxman-Markey bill later this month. Those lawmakers have been calling for the bill to give the USDA more oversight over a domestic offset system. 

If a deal can be worked out between Peterson and Waxman, the bill might be able to get a floor vote before the 4 July recess, the deadline sought by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Jackson noted the USDA has a good relationship with the agricultural community, which better enables them to work with farmers and landowners who stand to earn carbon credits from agricultural offset projects.  

“The information flow regarding offsets may well best go through them,” she said. 

Offset provision

The Waxman-Markey bill aims to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions 17 per cent below 2005 levels – in part through an emissions trading system.

The bill would allow up to one billion offset credits generated in the US to be used for compliance annually, and another billion from overseas.

As drafted, the bill gives the EPA broad authority to determine what qualifies as a carbon offset that can be used for compliance under a US carbon trading system.

Last week, members of the House agriculture committee from both political parties said at a hearing they wanted the USDA, not the EPA, determining what qualifies as a carbon offset, especially when the project involves reducing or sequestering emissions from farming or forestry.

Chairman Peterson, a Democrat, blasted the EPA during the hearing, and said the agricultural community had historically had bad experiences when dealing with the EPA.

Peterson pointed to an EPA analysis that showed little environmental benefit from soil sequestration as evidence that the agency did not understand agriculture.

No timeline

EPA's Jackson said the agency is watching the progress in Congress carefully, but said there was “no drop dead date” for when the EPA would begin regulating carbon emissions under the federal Clean Air Act.

The EPA has said that GHG emissions, including carbon dioxide emissions, are a public health threat and therefore should be regulated by the act if Congress fails to act.

“There’s no magic timeline,” Jackson said when asked at what point the EPA would deem Congress inactive.

The public comment period on the EPA’s preliminary “endangerment finding” is open until 23 June.

Jackson said there was no set timeline for when the EPA would issue a final endangerment finding.

“Obviously a final endangerment finding does obligate EPA to move toward regulation, and we take that very seriously,” she said.

By Rory Carroll – rc@pointcarbon.com

Washington DC