Though the U.S. Supreme Court has ordered a stay on the Environmental Protection Agency's vicious Clean Power Plan, Administrator Gina McCarthy continues to follow her marching orders from President Barack Obama and ignore the court's ruling.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., asked McCarthy this week why the agency's budget requests still include $50 million for implementation of a rule the highest court in the land said should not move forward.
"There's $25 million for the EPA to continue to develop tools and work with the states, but there's also $25 million for the states themselves to move forward voluntarily," according to McCarthy.
In other words, the EPA is asking Congress to approve funding for blatant disregard of a Supreme Court ruling. In fact, as Capito pointed out, "That's $50 million, but you're still at $185 million asking for appropriations for the center piece of this effort to the Clean Power Plan."
McCarthy's arrogance in responding to Capito is galling. Sounding like a child trying to get out of trouble on a technicality, she said, "Only those two are directly related to the Clean Power Plan. The rest is identified as opportunities in vehicle emissions, our Energy Star program, and our methane reduction initiatives."
Anyone who has spent five minutes in Washington can connect the dots between "directly related" and "identified as opportunities."
Though the intent of the EPA is crystal clear, Capito did not get much backup. Only a few other senators from "energy states" chimed in. There should have been a chorus of outrage - even if a senator believes the war on coal and reasonably priced electricity is justified, there is no arguing the EPA fully plans to disregard a Supreme Court ruling.
That alone should be reason to withhold the hundreds of millions of dollars Obama's EPA wants to fund its charge against those energy states.