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WASHINGTON — New Mexico Environment Secretary Ron Curry testified before the U.S. House Oversight Committee today after it grilled EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson about whether the agency intends to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants.

Carbon dioxide is the principal greenhouse gas that a U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says is causing the Earth to heat up.

Temperatures in New Mexico have gone up an average of 2 degrees over the last century, Curry said in his prepared testimony.

Earlier this year, Gov. Bill Richardson announced that New Mexico would set a target of reducing state greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels by 2012 and to 75 percent below 2000 levels by 2050.

But the state has no authority over power plants on the Navajo Nation, which has a Four Corners plant long considered one of the dirtiest coal plants in the country.

The Navajo Nation also has approved a new Desert Rock plant to be built near Farmington by Sithe Global Power.

The company plans to sell the power outside New Mexico and says Desert Rock will be the cleanest coal plant ever built.

But Curry said the state estimates that Desert Rock would emit about 12 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year.

Desert Rock was granted a draft permit by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency before a recent Supreme Court decision said carbon dioxide is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act and must be regulated by the EPA, at least for cars.

Johnson testified that the agency will issue a regulation on mobile sources of greenhouse gases before the end of the year and is studying whether it must also regulate greenhouse gases from power plants.

Rep. John Tierney, a Massachusetts Democrat, specifically asked Johnson if he would open up a new public comment period on the Desert Rock plant in light of the Supreme Court decision.

Johnson said he was not familiar with the permit and would have to get back to the committee.

In response to Curry, Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley said in a statement that the Navajos need jobs and that the Desert Rock plant would be so advanced that it would emit no more greenhouse gases than a comparable plant fueled by natural gas.