State regulators are pleading with the Obama administration to hold off on new rules curbing industrial greenhouse gas emissions, fretting that they're too costly for tapped-out budgets. Regulators from Kansas, Pennsylvania, Florida, California, and South Carolina have all chimed in, with varying levels of urgency, the Wall Street Journal reports. Some say the proposal could be easily tweaked to make it more workable; South Carolina, by contrast, predicted chaos, construction delays, and job losses.
California warned that the new rules “will likely retard, rather than facilitate” its own efforts to curb emissions. “We are gravely concerned that EPA's current proposal will likely create a huge administrative burden,” said a state energy official. Some of those costs will stem from all the emission sources being newly regulated; Kansas, for instance, is concerned with the effects on animal feeding operations. The EPA says it’s still reviewing the comments. (More EPA stories.)