Hill Republicans applaud climate rule rollback
Republican lawmakers welcomed the Trump administration’s Wednesday proposal to roll back limits on power plant emissions.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin unveiled a plan to wipe out power plant pollution limits and carbon storage requirements that were instituted under former President Joe Biden. The proposal would leave the power sector without a federal mandate to address fossil fuel emissions.
Republicans on Capitol Hill were quick to welcome EPA’s actions. They downplayed potential climate impacts, instead pointing to the need to bolster fuel production to power artificial intelligence and lower energy prices.
“These regulations promulgated during the Biden-Harris administration threaten American businesses and workers without making a meaningful difference toward addressing pollution,” said Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), chair of the House’s Energy and Commerce Committee, at EPA’s Wednesday rollout event.
The power sector is the second-largest source of American fossil fuel pollution. And while the United States is second only to China in terms of global pollution, EPA’s draft rule said that emissions from the domestic power sector have little contribution to global fossil fuel growth.
Indeed, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who has spent years calling out fossil fuel emissions overseas, applauded the proposed rulemaking Wednesday and said it did not depart from his push to fine foreign polluters.
“They didn’t cut back on all pollution standards. They are doing the ones that the Biden administration put in,” Cassidy said. “I think that the carbon intensity of our products is going to remain a heck of a lot better compared [to China].”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, similarly welcomed the Trump administration’s moves and noted the threat that Biden-era regulations posed to coal plants.
“I’m thrilled that EPA Administrator Zeldin is reversing Biden-era regulations that would turn off affordable coal and natural gas energy generation, and is prioritizing electric grid reliability and energy abundance,” Capito said in a statement.
Democrats, meanwhile, said the proposed rollback would be a major threat to air quality and would accelerate global warming.
Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the lead Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, said the EPA decision was based on a denial of climate change.
And the House’s Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition slammed the proposal as a misinterpretation of the federal government’s obligations under the Clean Air Act.
“We at SEEC understand that our job as public servants is to protect the freedoms of Americans to breathe clean air and drink clean water, not the freedoms of large polluting corporations to lay waste to our children’s health and future,” the Democratic group said in a statement.