Washington (Platts)--12Dec2011/559 pm EST/2259 GMT

US Senator Lisa Murkowski plans to introduce a bill that would give electric utilities more time to comply with a major air toxics rules scheduled to be finalized this week by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Alaska Republican said in a statement Monday.

"Given the reckless pace at which the EPA is advancing new rules, it is clear Congress must step in," Murkowski, the senior Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said. "I've instructed my staff to draft legislation that would put in place a safety valve worthy of the name so that the nation can continue to have reliable and affordable power. It helps no one to pay more for less reliable power, especially in today's tough economic times."

Murkowski has been one of the top critics of EPA's forthcoming Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule, which is scheduled to be finalized by Friday under the terms of a court settlement.

Murkowski repeated concerns from members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, utilities, grid operators and regional transmission organizations that coal- and oil-fired power plants will not be able to install adequate pollution controls within the three-to-four-year timeline envisioned by EPA, potentially leading to brownouts or blackouts in some regions.

EPA has dismissed those concerns, saying its efforts to reduce air pollution have never led to blackouts in the past and this rule will be no different. But the agency's assurances have failed to satisfy Murkowski, who says that neither EPA nor FERC has sufficiently studied the mercury rule's impact on reliability.

Murkowski did not divulge any details on how she would structure her legislation, but a so-called "safety valve" proposal floated by grid operators or utilities would allow certain "reliability critical" power plants to continue to operate past the compliance deadline without installing new pollution controls as long as their owners have agreed on a date to retire the plants and replace them with cleaner generation.

EPA appears to favor using court-approved consent decrees with utilities to implement the safety valve, although industry lobbyists have worried about the potential for environmental groups to challenge those decrees or use citizen lawsuits to force plants to comply or shut down.

Several industry groups, including the Edison Electric Institute, have said the president should issue an executive order, as authorized by the Clean Air Act, to allow plants to keep operating when it is in the national interest to do so.

--Nick Juliano, nicholas_juliano@platts.com