No doubt some lobbyist was patting himself on the back in January after securing a 3-year reprieve from EPA' greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations for the biomass industry.
But as
we pointed out at the time that deal was likely to be illusory. Now we can see how the deal will be killed without the Obama administration getting any blood on its hands.
The Center for Biological Diversity, the Conservation Law Foundation and the Natural Resources Council of Maine filed suit April 7 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit claiming that the EPA did not have authority to retroactively exclude biomass facilities from its greenhouse gas regulations, according to the
Clean Energy Report.
Our money is on the greens prevailing since EPA did act retroactively (after the GHGs rules and been finalized) and its exclusion of biomass (as a source of GHG emissions) is arguably arbitrary.
The significance of this story is best seen in the light of yesterday's
successful green challenge to Shell Oil's Obama-granted permits for drilling in the Arctic Ocean — i.e., once again, the Obama EPA acts in a slipshod manner opening the doors for the greens to sue successfully.
