A story over three days:

The Obama administration is studying ways to limit the reach of any greenhouse-gas regulations it might eventually set to large industrial sources, such as power plants and factories, rather than small businesses...The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs announced it was reviewing the EPA’s “greenhouse gas tailoring rule” on its web site Wednesday. Although the announcement didn’t disclose details about the rule, people familiar with the EPA’s work on the issue said they expected the agency’s proposal to call for regulating only facilities that emit 25,000 tons or more a year of carbon dioxide. That threshold would effectively limit the reach of new regulations to power plants, steel mills, and cement factories, people familiar with the matter said. (WSJ)

Which is good news for...everyone who doesn't use electricity, cement, or work in the thriving American steel industry?

"While the Clean Air Act says that we’re going to have to regulate all the stationary sources starting at 250 tons a year, that doesn't make sense for a variety of reasons," [chief climate counsel for the Sierra Club David] Bookbinder said in an interview yesterday. Changing a threshold that’s written into the Clean Air Act, even to protect small facilities from EPA regulation, may not stand up in court, said Roger Martella, a Washington-based partner at Sidley Austin LLP. The agency’s “heart is in the right place and they’re trying to use all the tools at their disposal to keep it contained to larger sources,” Martella, who served as EPA general counsel during the Bush administration, said in a phone interview today. “But it’s going to be a huge uphill battle and it’s probably just a matter of time before the containment breaks and a court finds that in fact that all sources are included, not just the larger sources,” (Bloomberg)

So, the Sierra Club says the idea of regulating CO2 under the Clean Air Act "doesn't make sense" even though they were one of the petitioners in Mass. v. EPA.

The endangerment finding was prompted by the 5-4 2006 Supreme Court Mass. v. EPA decision, which relied on an extremely literal interpretation of the Clean Air Act to crowbar CO2 into the law...Yet the Supreme Court said nothing that would let the EPA simply decide on its own to apply the law to some unfavored business while giving others a pass. And the Clean Air Act is explicit about the 250-ton threshold. Team Obama's real motive in "tailoring" this rule is to limit the immediate economic impact of carbon limits to head off a political backlash.

But even businesses that do get a pass shouldn't rest too easily. The green lobby will quickly sue to force the EPA to enforce fully its own rules and go after all carbon sources...President Obama claims that his "new energy economy" will jump start growth and jobs. The EPA endangerment rule repudiates that claim once and for all. If the green future is going to be so bright, why does the White House want to exempt so many businesses from its glories? (WSJ)

So basically the only thing standing between the EPA and the economy is if every single environmental group in the U.S. decides not to sue for the implementation of what they originally sued to implement. Bad news on the doorstep.