House Energy & Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) says overregulation by the Environmental Protection Agency is hurting Americans in their pocketbooks, citing recently proposed carbon dioxide standards for power plants as a prime example.
In a column in the September 2014 edition of The Ripon Forum, Upton writes that President Barack Obama’s administration has been “churning out spools of red tape” since 2009 and the EPA is the biggest culprit, “regulating at an unprecedented pace and at extraordinary levels.”
He claims the carbon dioxide rules proposed in June would “fundamentally change the nation’s energy sector” by placing stringent standards that would essentially ban the construction of coal-fired power plants and cost the economy billions of dollars in the process.
The EPA says the power sector accounts for 38 percent of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions, a leading source of greenhouse gases. The regulation calls for plants to cut those emissions by up to 30 percent by 2030 by improving energy efficiency, shifting from coal to natural gas, investing in renewable energy or upgrading power plant facilities. The average U.S. coal plant is 42 years old.
Upton refers to the proposal as “asserting unprecedented regulatory authority,” and says the House Energy & Commerce Committee will conduct aggressive oversight to hold EPA accountable.
“EPA is telling states how they can generate and use electricity,” he said. “Implementing this new rule will force even more of the nation’s power plants to shut down and put thousands of workers out of a job, all the while raising electricity prices and diminishing America’s global competitiveness.”