Senate Republicans are punching back against the Biden administration’s spate of environmental regulations designed to reduce the country’s reliance on fossil fuels in favor of clean energy.
A previously unreported report from Environment and Public Works Committee Republicans, obtained by Bloomberg Government, lambastes the White House for rolling out “damaging” rules, ranging from stricter tailpipe emission standards for new cars and trucks to more aggressive carbon emission limits on coal and gas-fired power plants.
EPW ranking member Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) pledged to continue the attack on the administration’s clean energy and climate policies ahead of the November election. The Environmental Protection Agency has been at the center of the administration’s climate and clean energy regulatory push, with the agency finalizing several rules since the beginning of the year and poised to release more soon to bolster Biden’s initiatives while Democrats still control the White House and the Senate.
“Despite clear warnings from American consumers and job creators, and loss after loss in the courts, President Biden is moving full-steam ahead with his crippling, unrealistic environmental agenda in 2024,” Capito said in a statement to Bloomberg Government. “Americans do not want and cannot afford what this administration intends to accomplish through executive overreach and deference to climate activists.”
The Republican-controlled House has passed legislation, including H.R. 1, its signature energy bill, to counter what the GOP views as Biden’s radical and rushed green agenda that threatens America’s energy security, reliability, and affordability. But the Democratic-controlled Senate has ignored those bills.
Senate Republicans have largely turned to the Congressional Review Act in an attempt to thwart the White House’s environmental regulations. Disapproval resolutions must be introduced after a rule is finalized; Congress then has a limited amount of time to hold a vote to overturn the executive regulation.
The report released by Capito on Thursday outlines the billions in costs associated with implementing Biden’s rules, ranging from stronger air quality metrics on fine particulate matter to a proposed waiver for California to put in place more ambitious emissions standards for new vehicles. Advocates of tighter environmental standards overall, including the production of cleaner cars, have argued that such regulations ultimately will save money and lives when fully implemented.
Capito, a coal state lawmaker, reserved a significant amount of criticism in the report to the administration’s proposed power plant rules. Utilities, as well as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, have expressed concern about grid reliability related to the regulation.
“At the same time the administration seeks to force the closure of power plants, Biden is trying to mandate a recklessly fast transition to electric vehicles that will cause power demand to rise,” the report said.
EPW Chairman Tom Carper (D-Del.), who has a strong working relationship with Capito, said the Biden administration is “ensuring the United States is leading the international community on critical climate, environment and infrastructure-related issues,” calling its approach “thoughtful” in a statement to Bloomberg Government.
“No other administration in our nation’s history has made more progress in the fight against climate change,” he said, citing the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act.