Inhofe takes aim at Obama's environmental agenda

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

 

Sen. Jim Inhofe is pursuing a robust agenda that includes shredding the Environmental Protection Agency's cost estimates for new air quality rules, while going after a White House metric at the heart of the president's climate agenda.

 

The Oklahoma Republican, who is chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, has been a staunch critic of the EPA and the Obama administration's environmental policy. He has championed campaigns to undercut environmental regulations that he sees as costly and unwarranted, including EPA plans to regulate greenhouse gases that are blamed by most scientists for causing manmade climate change.

 

At a March 11 hearing, Inhofe took aim at EPA's latest regulations to limit carbon dioxide from the nation's existing power plants. He called the rules, known as the Clean Power Plan, an affront to states' rights that would raise the cost of energy and damage power grid reliability.

 

He also said he was not convinced that EPA's estimates of the rule's benefits were accurate, noting that agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said as much at a separate hearing on the agency's budget earlier in the month.

 

In a statement he issued March 4 after the budget hearing, Inhofe said he took key revelations from McCarthy's testimony, including the hefty price tag of implementing the climate rules.

[Geee]

Sen. John Thune to revive ozone bill

 

Sen. John Thune will revive legislation Tuesday that takes aim at an Obama administration proposal to tighten the amount of ground-level ozone pollution allowed in the atmosphere, an aide told the Washington Examiner.

 

The South Dakota Republican's bill would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from imposing a more stringent standard until 85 percent of the more than 200 counties that have yet to comply with the current regulation do so. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., is lined up to co-sponsor the bill, said Thune spokeswoman Rachel Millard.

 

The move comes as the comment period for the proposed EPA rule closes Tuesday. The House Science, Space and Technology Committee will hold a hearing on the subject Tuesday.

 

The EPA in November floated lowering the tolerable limit for ozone, or smog, to between 65 and 70 parts per billion, down from the level of 75 ppb set under former President George W. Bush in 2008. The agency also is taking comment on whether to set the standard at 60 ppb, though it wasn't part of the official proposal.

 

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/sen.-john-thune-to-revive-ozone-bill/article/2561584

[Valin]

@Geee

 

The Obama Administration’s Attack on the Constitution: Part 2, Environmental Protection Agency

John Hinderaker

March 16, 2015

 

(Snip)

 

The EPA’s current usurpation, an effort to remake America’s power supply system, is much more serious. The EPA has proposed a far-reaching regulation of power plants that would drive many of them out of business in the name of global warming. The EPA’s proposed regulation constitutes a statutory framework that Congress perhaps could have enacted, but didn’t. It represents the most extreme case, so far, of an administrative agency run amok.

 

Tomorrow the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power will conduct a hearing on the EPA’s proposed regulations. Note that this hearing is taking place only because Republicans control the House; otherwise, the EPA’s scheme would go into effect without being questioned. One of the witnesses tomorrow will be my old professor and friend Larry Tribe, of Harvard Law School. Professor Tribe is the liberals’ most eminent constitutional law scholar.

 

Tribe may be a liberal, but he retains some regard for the Constitution, so his testimony will not be friendly to the EPA. You can read his prepared testimony here. Tribe concludes that the proposed EPA power plant regulations raise serious constitutional questions on multiple fronts, and are plainly unauthorized by Congress, which created the EPA and–theoretically, at least–controls it. His testimony is lengthy and detailed; if you have time, you should read it all. Excerpts don’t do it justice. Nevertheless, here are a few, starting with a description of what EPA intends:

 

 

The Environmental Protection Agency’s “Clean Power Plan” would command every State by the year 2016 to develop a package of EPA-approved laws requiring coal-fired power plants to shut down or reduce operations, consumers and businesses to use less electricity and pay more for it, and utilities to shift from coal to other energy sources–a total overhaul of each State’s way of life. Noncomplying States would face sanctions, including the potential loss of federal highway funds, and the takeover of their energy sectors by an inflexible federal plan of uncertain scope that would inflict significant economic damage.

 

EPA lacks the statutory and constitutional authority to adopt its plan.

 

 

The EPA has no apparent authority to enact this scheme, but it takes a broad view of its own powers. Professor Tribe writes:

 

(Snip)