Ranking Member Capito Pledges Formal Challenge to EPA’s Newest Power Plant Regulations Targeting American Energy Production
Capito will introduce Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval to overturn the administration’s “most blatant attempt yet to close down power plants and kill American energy jobs”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, issued the below statement on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) latest set of proposed power plant regulations that will force the closure of coal and gas-fired power plants. Capito announced plans to lead efforts through the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn this attempt by the Biden administration to revive the illegal Clean Power Plan.
“The Clean Power Plan 2.0 announced today is the Biden administration’s most blatant attempt yet to close down power plants and kill American energy jobs. The EPA has already tried this illegal overreach, which was ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court, but not before it devastated communities in West Virginia and across the country.
“Whether it’s through policies like the Inflation Reduction Act or an onslaught of executive branch regulations like those announced today, Americans are well aware that the left continues to wage war on the energy sources that actually power this nation. At a time when millions of Americans are struggling to fill up their tanks and pay their utility bills under President Biden, it’s reprehensible that this administration would clamp down even further on domestic energy production while advancing policies meant to increase demand for electricity. I plan to introduce a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval to protect workers and families from the disastrous impacts of these latest job-killing regulations.”
In 2015, Senators Capito and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) successfully challenged then-President Obama’s original Clean Power Plan, which the Supreme Court later overturned, with CRA resolutions of disapproval on the administration’s rules targeting both existing and new power plants. The Senate approved both resolutions: S.J. Res 24 introduced by Capito, and S.J. Res 23 introduced McConnell. The resolutions were vetoed by President Obama.
In August 2022, during floor debate of the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, Ranking Member Capito filed an amendment to eliminate a provision that would have given the EPA $45 million in additional funding to use eight different sections of the Clean Air Act to issue regulations on greenhouse gases like the ones announced today (Sec. 111 of the Clean Air Act). That amendment failed 50-50 with every Senate Democrat voting “no.”
Ranking Member Capito then successfully challenged the provision as violating the requirements of the Congressional Budget Act. The damaging provision was stripped out of the bill after the parliamentarian determined it violated the “Byrd rule” of that statute.