Obama administration slows environmental rules as it weighs political cost

After pushing through some of the most sweeping and contentious environmental measures in years, the Obama administration has slowed action on several policies as it calculates what it should undertake before the end of the term.

Rules aimed at curbing emissions from cars and light trucks are on hold because the White House has yet to give the Office of Management and Budget the go-ahead to review them. And a proposal to regulate soot, ready last fall, will not be issued before June.

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Stalled environmental rules

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Several of the regulations hanging in the balance have broad support among not just environmentalists but key industries as well as hunters and anglers. But they could impose new costs on consumers and certain sectors of the economy, which has sparked opposition and complicated the administration’s political calculus.

“Behind the scenes [the Environmental Protection Agency] is pressing to get rules out before the administration pulls up the drawbridge and goes into campaign mode,” said Joe Stanko, who heads government relations at the law firm Hunton & Williams. “It will be a battle to see how far down EPA’s shopping list they get.”

White House spokesman Clark Stevens wrote in an e-mail that the administration would seek to balance economic and environmental considerations when deciding what regulations to issue in the coming year.

“The administration has a strong record of implementing smart, sensible steps that protect consumers, public health, and the environment, informed by feedback from the public and industry and guided by the president’s goal of supporting economic growth while protecting the air we breathe and the water we drink,” Stevens wrote. “This includes historic fuel economy standards that will dramatically reduce oil consumption, slash vehicle emissions, all while saving American families thousands of dollars at the pump, as well as the first national standard for mercury emissions.”

The fight over whether to propose a new federal fuel and vehicle program — known as “Tier 3,” because it’s the third iteration of rules aimed at curbing emissions from cars and light trucks — epitomizes the dilemma the administration faces. In late December, the EPA completed the package of proposed rules, which would slash the amount of sulfur in U.S. gasoline by two-thirds while imposing fleetwide pollution limits on new vehicles.

But because the rules must undergo a review by the Office of Management and Budget before being issued and the White House has yet to grant the agency clearance to send the package over, it remains in regulatory limbo.

A broad group of auto companies, environmentalists, equipment manufacturers and state regulators support it because it would curb air pollution and help cars run more efficiently at a modest cost. The National Association of Clean Air Agencies commissioned a study that estimated the cleanup would cost less than a penny a gallon.

Automakers say the rule, which would lower the sulfur content of gas from 30 to 10 parts per million, will give them greater regulatory certainty by bringing federal standards in line with those of California.