Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
4/24/2015
The House Subcommittee on Energy and Power this week approved by a vote of 17-12 Chairman Ed Whitfield’s (R-Ky.) “Ratepayer Protection Act,” which is intended to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from enforcing proposed carbon emissions standards for coal-fired power plants. The EPA’s proposal, which is currently the subject of several legal challenges, would set state-specific emissions reduction goals and requires states to develop and submit action plans to meet those goals through whatever means the state finds most appropriate. Whitfield’s bill, though, would delay implementation of the EPA’s proposed regulations until all legal challenges are resolved.
During this week’s subcommittee markup of the bill, Whitfield said, “Our bill basically, because of the controversy on the legality, says the states do not have to comply or submit an implementation plan until the ratepayers and others have exhausted their remedies in the court system. Then the timeline would kick in.” He added, “We also say to the state governors… that if they show that rates and reliability would be significantly and adversely affected by this rule they can take action to delay implementation.”
Three amendments to the bill were offered by subcommittee Democrats during the markup. Subcommittee Ranking Member Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) submitted two amendments that would have required governors seeking to delay implementation to also prove that “any ratepayer increases associated with implementing a State or Federal plan … would be greater than any costs associated with responding to extreme weather events associated with human-caused climate change” and that “the inapplicability of a State or Federal plan … will not have a significant adverse effect on public health.” A third amendment, offered Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), would have inserted language to the bill stating that the federal government should address human-induced climate change through reductions in carbon pollution. The Rush amendments failed by votes of 10-16 and 10-17 respectively and the Pallone amendment failed by a vote of 12-17.
