The Environmental Protection Agency's top air official told a House subcommittee June 19 that the agency has the legal authority under a little-used section of the Clean Air Act to issue a proposed rule to curb carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants.

“What we've done with this rule is completely within the four corners of” Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, Janet McCabe, the EPA acting assistant administrator for air and radiation, told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power.

House Republicans pressed the EPA to explain its legal authority to set statewide emissions rates for existing fossil fuel-fired power plants during the first of a series of hearings planned for the proposed rule.

Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) said the EPA previously has issued performance standards under 111(d) that required emissions reductions at the facility level rather than at the state level.

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