We have posted before about a number of issues related to greenhouse gas regulation and climate change litigation.  Now comes word that a potential showdown in the U.S. Senate over competing proposals to either strip the EPA of asserted authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions or to delay the implementation of such rules has been put off until Senators return from their recess at the end of this month.

Earlier this month, Senate Republicans offered an amendment to the Small Business Reauthorization Act (S. 493) that would end all EPA authority to address emissions related to global climate change and block all current and future emissions rules. And the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 15 approved an identical, stand-alone measure (H.R. 910), which we have posted on before.  The committee vote was along party lines. Also in play is an alternative offered by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) that would impose a two-year delay of enforcement of EPA’s rules regarding power plants and other large emitting facilities.

There is also speculation about other measures short of a complete ban on EPA regulation, including a  proposal to exempt the agricultural sector from EPA’s greenhouse gas rules.

All this may come to a head when the Senate reconvenes in April. Meanwhile in the litigation, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court last week (on behalf of Respondents New York, Connecticut, California, Iowa, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the city of New York) asking the Court to  to recognize the right of states to sue various power companies as contributors to global warming. American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, No. 10-174 (U.S., brief filed 3/11/11).  The case is set for oral argument on April 19.