Subcommittee hearing examines Clean Power Plan’s impact on state, national levels

The Committee on Science, Space and Technology’s Subcommittee on Environment held a hearing on Thursday to examine the impact on the state level of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, as well as the implementation and associated economic and legal issues at the national level.

“We have learned in previous hearings that these regulations are all pain with no gain,” Environment Subcommittee Chairman Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) said at the hearing, entitled “Impact of EPA’s Clean Power Plan on States.” “The Clean Power Plan does nothing to avert future temperature rise or prevent further sea rise. However, the economic costs to Americans will be approximately $29-$39 billion per year.

“EPA regulations should always respect the sovereignty of states, especially since it is the citizens in each state who bear the brunt of EPA’s rules. I am particularly concerned with how this rule will affect the hard-working residents of my district in the state of Oklahoma.”

The EPA has been sued over the Clean Power Plan by at least 26 states, which cite the agency’s overreach of its authority under the Clean Air Act, as well as an unlawful attempt to usurp the ability of states to regulate electrical generation systems.

A “stay” of the Clean Power Plan was issued by the Supreme Court in March to prevent the EPA from enforcing any of the rule’s requirements until the lawsuits it faces are fully resolved. The EPA, however, has continued to move forward with a shadow regulatory structure to implement the Clean Power Plan.

“[EPA’s] regulations perpetrate a fraud on the American people,” Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) said. “The so-called Clean Power Plan will cost billions of dollars, cause financial hardship for American families, and diminish the competitiveness of American employers, all with no significant benefit.

“The administration’s alarmism is not good science and intentionally misleads the American people. The president’s signed Paris pledge will increase electricity costs, ration energy and slow economic growth. It ignores good science and only seeks to advance a partisan political agenda.”