Congress vs. Bush on a new front: emissions

President Bush, while acknowledging Tuesday that he took “very seriously” the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency must regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles as pollution, set up a potential conflict with Congress by attaching two conditions to comply with the decision.

Bush said that any regulatory program should not slow economic growth, nor should its benefits to the atmosphere be offset by mounting emissions from China, India and other growing economies.

Congress has been laying the groundwork for tougher regulation of greenhouse gases and Bush’s stance appeared likely to retard EPA regulation of carbon dioxide and other gases that trap heat at the Earth’s surface.

“The president still doesn’t get it,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement to The Times.

She said Bush’s legislative proposal to encourage cleaner automobile fuels would actually result in greater emissions of greenhouse gases. Bush has proposed a program of liquefying coal for use in automobiles -- a process that releases substantial amounts of carbon dioxide.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Monday that the EPA was required by law to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants. The administration, siding with automakers, had argued that carbon dioxide was not a pollutant as defined by the Clean Air Act, but the court held that it was merely a different kind of pollutant.

Asked about the decision at a Rose Garden news conference, Bush said, “I have said that it is a serious problem. I recognize that man is contributing greenhouse gases.” But solving the problem, he said, must not cut into economic growth.

“It’s going to require new technologies, which tend to be expensive, and it’s easier to afford expensive technologies if you’re prosperous.”

He also said China and India must join the global warming fight. “Unless there is an accord with China,” he said, “China will produce greenhouse gases that will offset anything we do in a brief period of time.”

Responding to that remark, Boxer said: “I find it offensive that the president is still using China as an excuse to do nothing when the U.S. has always been a leader in environmental protection.”

She said she would summon EPA officials before her committee this month to explain how they would follow the Supreme Court ruling. Her goal, she said, was passage of “the strongest possible global warming legislation.”

EPA spokesmen said Tuesday that it was too early to respond to the decision.

Two House committees also have expressed interest in global warming legislation. A subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, whose chairman is Rep. John D. Dingell, a Democrat whose Michigan district is home to much of the auto industry, has already held 10 hearings on the subject.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, also is interested in the issue, according to a spokesperson, but he has not formulated a plan.

The auto industry, the principal target of the ruling, reacted guardedly to the decision and Bush’s response.

Dave McCurdy, chairman and chief executive officer of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said in a statement that “there needs to be a national, federal, economy-wide approach to addressing greenhouse gases. This decision says that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will be part of this process.”

The group emphasized the importance of building more fuel-efficient cars because vehicles that use less fuel emit less carbon dioxide.

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joel.havemann@latimes.com