Oct. 2--CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced new greenhouse gas regulations in an apparent effort to jumpstart Congress' efforts to curb global climate change, and the move has unnerved some West Virginia leaders and corporations.

If the new rule were approved, it would require the nation's largest gas-emitting facilities to adopt the best, most efficient emissions-reducing technologies available when they are built or upgraded.

Those 14,000 power plants, landfills and refineries release about 70 percent of the nation's greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, which many scientists say are causing global climate change.

But the rule will have little if any real effect on emissions in the short term because companies have to install new technology to reduce emissions only if they are building new facilities or making major improvements to old ones.

"It doesn't have any immediate effect on the utilities at this point," said John Benedict, the director of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection's air quality division.

Industry groups are also likely to tie the EPA up in court.

Instead, the agency's announcement was largely seen as a way for President Barack Obama's administration to prod Congress into passing environmental legislation.

The EPA's announcement comes just ahead of a United Nations meeting on climate change in December. If the United States shows up without significant new environmental regulations, experts say the talks could produce few results.

EPA announced its plans following a release of its 416-page proposal Wednesday, the same day that Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., introduced a Senate bill to create a system to cap and trade the greenhouse gases many scientists say are causing global climate change.

Cap and trade is widely seen as a more economically viable way to go about curbing emissions. Even though industry groups say cap and trade will cost the country millions of dollars and send jobs oversees, many groups are at the table with lawmakers to negotiate incentives, exemptions and subsidies for themselves.

Once Congress acts, this week's EPA proposal could be off the table. Many if not all of the cap and trade bills working their way through Congress would attempt to cut by over 80 percent the amount of greenhouse gases released in the United States, but they would also put a leash on the EPA coming up with its own regulations.

"There is a serious question about whether the EPA is acting beyond the scope of its authority," Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said in a press release.