Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
8/7/2015
Despite their best efforts, Democrats on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works were unable to keep Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s (R-W.Va.) “Affordable Reliable Electricity Now Act” (ARENA) from being reported out of committee this week. The bill would repeal the Environmental Protection Agency’s newly finalized carbon emissions standards for new and existing coal-fired power plants.
The EPA regulations would largely mandate the use of carbon capture and storage technology on all new-build plants and would require states to develop action plans to meet federally set emission reduction goals for existing coal-fired plants.
Along with aiming to eliminate those rules, the bill contains language intended to remove any ambiguity in the Clean Air Act regarding the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon from coal-fired power plants, essentially barring the agency from drafting any future carbon regulations for coal-fired plants.
This language relates to an underlying legal argument that while the section of the Clean Air Act under which the EPA has developed the existing source rule does empower the agency to require states to regulate existing-source emissions, it excludes the regulation of air pollutants emitted from a source that is already regulated under Section 112. Coal-fired power plants are already regulated under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act. The EPA has argued that an error in the amendments to the Clean Air Act has created an ambiguity, allowing the agency to develop the regulations. Capito’s bill would ensure that the Clean Air Act reads without that ambiguity, making it nearly impossible for agency to develop future carbon emissions regulations.
Committee Democrats for a time waylaid the markup of the bill during Wednesday’s session, offering a number of amendments that would halt the act from taking effect until an alternative carbon pollution program that could achieve the same outcomes as the EPA’s carbon regulation is put in place. All of these amendments failed on party-line votes. “What’s your plan?” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) asked committee Republicans. “Put your plan out here so that we can hear what you’re going to do. … What’s your plan? When is it going to be out here? Who’s going to make that plan on your side?”
In response, panel Republicans cited the Energy Policy Modernization Act, which recently moved through the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. That legislation, however, does not explicitly address carbon pollution.
After two hours of debate, Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) limited discussion on amendments to seven minutes per amendment. Shortly thereafter all Democrats still present left the room, denying the committee a vote on the bill.
Following a recess, the markup was reconvened later in the day outside the Senate floor and a quorum of committee Republicans approved the measure. “The Democrats’ decision to walk out on the EPW Committee markup was a complete surprise, but it also affirms that liberal Democrats are not committed to addressing the flaws in the president’s carbon mandates,” Inhofe said in a statement released following the conclusion of the markup.
