Two of West Virginia’s federal delegation in Washington have introduced legislation in their respective chambers to combat what they believe is overreach by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and President Joe Biden’s administration.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and Rep. Carol Miller, both R-W.Va., have introduced the Protect Our Power Plants Act.
Both Capito and Miller were highly critical of the EPA and Biden Administration, which they say are trying to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia vs. the EPA in which the court ruled that the EPA can’t issue sweeping regulations in regards to greenhouse gases.
“The EPA has overstepped their role and is waging war on power plants across the United States,” Miller said. “The Biden administration and Washington Democrats continue to shut down domestic energy production in the name of their Green New Deal agenda while the United States should be focused on maintaining its energy dominance.”
Capito said the EPA and Biden Administration are attempting to implement rules that will harm workers in West Virginia and others states by eliminating their jobs, while also driving up energy costs across the nation.
“With its Clean Power Plan 2.0, the Biden administration has made it quite clear they intend to ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia v. EPA, put the people who help power our nation out of work, and increase energy costs for millions of Americans,” Capito said.
“In the face of this illegal overreach, Congresswoman Miller and I are standing up for workers and families in energy-producing communities across the country, including those in West Virginia.”
America’s Coal Associations, an industry group composed of state coal associations and groups, has called for lawmakers to take the EPA to task for its “most recent power plant rule, and the agency’s incessant regulatory overreach.”
“The proposed rule is regulatory extortion; EPA is using its rule-making powers to implement President Biden’s stated goal of accelerating decarbonization of our nation’s economy and ending coal-powered electric generation,” West Virginia Coal Association President Chris Hamilton said. “The compliance costs associated with the aforementioned rule and EPA’s menu of onerous, additional rules, will readily force the closure of coal-based generation.”
As we’ve noted before, when it comes to the nation’s ability to navigate the pursuit of cleaner energy generation, timing is everything.
And it’s troublesome that lawmakers have to continually revisit what has been pointed out numerous times before and is readily to clear to those who choose to see: While green energy needs to be a part of power generation and may some day be the largest part of that, it is not currently able to provide the base load needed.
Eliminating proven sources of power generation is foolish and wastes time and energy when supporters of green energy should be looking for ways to boost those forms of power without threatening those sources and workers who are currently getting the job done.
Capito, Miller and others are right to lead the congressional effort to make sure the EPA and the current administration don’t take action that could harm the U.S. economy and national security.