House Versions Reported out of Committee, Floor Vote Set for Week of Nov. 30
Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
11/20/2015
The Senate on Tuesday voted 52-46 in favor of two Congressional Review Act resolutions disapproving of the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to regulate carbon emissions from new and existing coal-fired power plants. The regulations in question, drafted under Sections 111(b) and 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, were finalized Aug. 3 and have caused for quite a bit of controversy.
The vote saw three members of each party crossing the aisle. Democratic Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), and Joe Manchin (W.Va.) voted in favor of the resolutions, while Republican Sens. Mark Kirk (Ill.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), and Susan Collins (Maine) voted against the measures. If these resolutions, and their House counterparts, are voted into law and survive veto, they would nullify the EPA’s regulations.
Critics argued that the EPA exceeded its authority in promulgating the rules. The 111(b) regulation, the New Source Performance Standards (NSPS), requires the use of partial carbon capture and storage on all new-build coal-fired power plants. The 111(d) regulation for existing plants, the Clean Power Plan, sets state-specific carbon reduction targets and requires states to develop action plans to meet those goals.
Many supporters of the resolutions suggested that voting against the EPA’s regulations now, two weeks before President Barack Obama heads to Paris in hopes of striking a new global climate agreement at the 21st Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, will make clear the feelings of Congress on the climate issue.
“Passing this resolution will send a clear message to the world that a majority of the Congress does not stand behind the president’s efforts to address climate change with economically catastrophic regulations,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said on the Senate floor. “Passing this resolution will also demonstrate to the American people that the Senate understands the need for affordable and reliable energy.”
The EPA regulations’ backers suggested the vote was an act of futility. “We are on a measure that clearly won’t pass under the Congressional Review Act, clearly will go to the president and be vetoed and be sustained on the veto. So this will never become law. It is just a big exercise in time-wasting,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said on the Senate floor.
White House Threatens Veto
A veto is, in fact, imminent if the resolutions make it to the president, as signaled by two statements of administration policy released Tuesday by the White House. “The resolution would impede efforts to reduce carbon pollution from existing power plants – the largest source of carbon pollution in the country – when the need to act, and to act quickly, to mitigate climate change impacts on American communities has never been more clear,” the statement addressing the resolution against the Clean Power Plan says.
The statement on the NSPS resolution says “the resolution could enable continued build-out of outdated, high-polluting, and long-lived power generation infrastructure and impede efforts to reduce carbon pollution from new and modified power plants.”
Both statements definitively state that “if the President were presented with [the resolution], he would veto the bill.”
EPA Takes note
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, speaking on a Bloomberg TV broadcast Wednesday said she has taken note of the action on the floor. “The Senate vote yesterday, it’s certainly something I’m going to pay attention to. Nothing that Congress does is meaningless,” she said. “I think I have to look at the folks that voted against [the regulations], and we have to continue to do a better job at explaining to them that what EPA’s doing with this rule and everything else is protecting their kids’ future.”
House Reports CRAs out of Committee
On the other side of Capitol Hill, the House Energy and Commerce Committee reported its version of the CRAs favorably with a 28-21 vote. The arguments on either side of the debate mirrored those made in the Senate.
Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) said the regulations do not represent the will of Congress. “These rules were finalized without consultation with Congress, input from Congress, and in direct opposition to the express will of Congress,” he said. “The Congressional Review Act is not something that we use lightly, but it is an oversight tool that provides the legislative branch with the powers to overturn a major regulation issued by a federal agency. The act can be invoked to prevent a rule that exceeds an agency’s statutory authority.”
Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) echoed Whitehouse’s sentiments, saying “voting on this bill is a waste of time because it will never be enacted into law,” he said, making note of the White House statements.
A floor vote on the resolutions is scheduled for the week of Nov. 30, the first week of the Paris climate negotiations.
Senators Request GAO Report on Cost of Climate Inaction
Shortly after the Senate voted in support of the CRA resolutions, Collins and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who both voted against the resolutions, wrote to the Government Accountability Office requesting a report examining what is known about how estimates of economic benefits and costs of climate change in the United States are developed; what is known about the estimated range of economic benefits and costs of climate change in the United States at present and in the near future, assuming no change in federal policy; and based on these estimates, what federal policy actions could have the largest influence in offsetting federal costs associated with climate change.
