WASHINGTON (WV News) — U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., have teamed up on a bill pushing back against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s recently proposed power plant standards.
The Protect Our Power Plants Act outlines the “illegalities of the EPA’s latest proposal,” according to a joint press release.
“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.”
“With its Clean Power Plan 2.0,” Capito said, “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. 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 comprised of state coal associations and groups, released a letter Monday urging “congressional action in opposition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 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.”
The EPA announced its new proposed power plant rules at the end of May.
They would require coal and natural gas-fired electrical generation facilities to capture or dramatically reduce carbon emissions in the years ahead and would impact gas-fired combustion turbines, existing coal, oil and gas-fired steam generating units, and certain existing gas-fired combustion turbines.
The day the rules were announced, Capito said they would result in the closing of West Virginia’s remaining coal power plants.
“The president’s EPA announced earlier today new regulations that will cause essentially all of our coal-fired power plants — which generate 90% of our electricity in our state — to close by 2032,” she said.
Gov. Jim Justice said he planned to “urge” state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey to lead a legal challenge against the rules.
“Without any question, I will absolutely urge our attorney general — Patrick will do a good job with regard to this,” he said. “I will urge anybody and everybody to challenge through our court system or whatever it may be to absolutely see that this doesn’t come to pass.”