West Virginia Democrats Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Reps. Nick J. Rahall and Alan B. Mollohan introduced legislation March 3 and 4 to block the proposed EPA action.

“This legislation will issue a two-year suspension on EPA regulation of greenhouse gases from stationary sources,” Rockefeller said, “giving Congress the time it needs to address an issue as complicated and expansive as our energy future.”

Early in President Barack Obama’s administration, the threat of EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources — coal-fired power plants prominent among them — was seen as the blunt stick that would spur Congress to act on a more finely crafted cap-and-trade or other approach.

But after the House of Representatives passed cap-and-trade legislation last summer, the Senate became mired in the details and caught up in health care reform and still has not acted.

Now, EPA regulations that could come out this month would limit emissions from the largest stationary sources but would provide none of the protections that Congress wants: funding for renewable energy and clean coal research, for example, or help for trade-exposed sectors.

Unready to complete its own legislation, Congress is working to block the EPA.

On Jan. 21, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, introduced a bipartisan resolution disapproving the EPA’s endangerment finding.

That bill has not yet been subject to a floor vote, but Obama has indicated that he would not sign it.

On Feb. 22, Rockefeller and seven other coal-state senators asked Jackson for clarification of the agency’s plans.

Jackson responded that the agency would delay requiring any stationary source to have permits until 2011, and that its final “tailoring rule” would raise the initial permitting threshold “substantially higher” than the 25,000 tons per year originally proposed.

Encouraged but unsatisfied, Rockefeller followed with his March 4 “Stationary Source Regulations Delay Act” to suspend potential EPA regulation of GHG emissions from stationary sources for two years.

“We must set this delay in stone and give Congress enough time to consider a comprehensive energy bill to develop the clean coal technologies we need,” he said in a media release.

“At a time when so many people are hurting, we need to put decisions about clean coal and our energy future into the hands of the people and their elected representatives, not a federal environmental agency.”

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., chose not to cosponsor the bill, saying March 4 that he will “continue to negotiate with all who are earnestly engaged in the pursuit of a proper balance between saving jobs, protecting the environment and ensuring the health of our communities.”

Rahall and Mollohan introduced a parallel bill March 3 in the House with Rick Boucher, D-Va.

While Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., told The State Journal she is concerned about legislation that continues uncertainty for coal industry — through a two-year postponement — she has cosponsored a bill prohibiting the EPA from regulating GHGs under the Clean Air Act and two bills disapproving such regulation.

Jackson provided new details on the tailoring rule at a March 4 Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, saying that the agency is looking toward raising its initial threshold for regulation of stationary sources of GHG emissions from 25,000 tons per year to 75,000 or possibly 100,000 tpy. Although the hearing testimony did not appear online in time for this story, E&E News PM reported Jackson saying that, with this higher threshold, fewer than 400 facilities would be subject to permitting in the first half of 2011 and perhaps 1,700 in the second half. A lower threshold — 50,000 tons per year was mentioned — kicking in in 2013 might bring about 3,000 additional sources under permit, she said. Much smaller sources would not be regulated until at least 2016. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., observed at the hearing that she feels the EPA is moving in a measured fashion.

She voiced disapproval about congressional efforts to stop the agency.

“The alternative to EPA proceeding, in my view, is that the Congress passes a new law, and thus far, we have refused or been unable, whichever it is, to do so,” she was quoted as saying in the New York Times.