Alaskan senator seeks to block EPA's power to regulate greenhouse gases

Barack Obama faced a direct challenge to his government's powers to curb global warming pollution yesterday, just 48 hours after an election upset put the rest of his agenda at risk.

In a speech to Congress, a Republican senator from Alaska announced she would use an obscure and rarely used measure to try to strip the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of its powers to regulate greenhouse gas emissions as a dangerous pollutant.

"We cannot turn a blind eye to the EPA's efforts to impose back-door climate regulations," Lisa Murkowski told the Senate in prepared remarks. Murkowski's motion of disapproval, though unlikely to become law, is widely seen as a barometer for the chances of getting a climate change bill through the Senate this year.

In an ominous sign for supporters of a climate law, she had the support of three Democratic Senators, further underscoring the unease in Obama's own party in enacting legislation to tackle global warming.

Delivering new laws to tackle global warming was not just a key pledge of Obama's, but is being closely watched around the world as global climate change negotiations struggle to recover from the disappointment of the UN summit in Copenhagen. An environment official in the European Union said: "It's clearly a setback."

Murkowski's move, brought under the Congressional Review Act, would remove the Obama administration's "Plan B" for dealing with climate change, resorting to the EPA to curb greenhouse gas emissions if Congress fails to act.

The motion of disapproval, called the "nuclear option" by environmentalists, would also ban the administration from drafting any new regulation that would be substantially the same. That would make it even more difficult for any US government to regulate power plants and other big emitters.

Environmentalists say the proposal is unlikely to pass, but ensuring its defeat could require a new round of partisan warfare that could be damaging for Democrats and Obama's agenda.

In her speech, Murkowski argued that giving the EPA the authority to act on global warming would cost jobs and hurt the economy: "Under the guise of protecting the environment, it's set to unleash a wave of damaging new regulations that will wash over and further submerge our struggling economy."

She said she supported efforts to get a climate change law, but said: "This command-and-control approach is our worst option for reducing the emissions."

Murkowski has tried to cast herself as a moderate Republican who would be prepared to act on climate change. But she has voted against such legislation in the past, and has been criticised this week by environmentalists for her links to the energy industry.