West Virginia's Capito leads congressional challenge to EPA power plant rules

U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito has made good on her promise to spearhead the legislative objection to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new power plant rules.

Capito, R-W.Va., ranking member of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, introduced a formal challenge to the EPA rules through the Congressional Review Act on Wednesday.

The resolution was supported by a bipartisan group of 43 other senators, including U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va.

“With this Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval, every member of Congress will have the opportunity to protect America’s energy future, heed the warnings of our nation’s electric grid operators and adhere to the precedent set by the Supreme Court,” Capito said. “This vote is an important one because the Biden administration’s Clean Power Plan 2.0 makes it clear it will stand with climate activists, regardless of the harm that is sure to be done to families, workers and communities across West Virginia and the rest of the country.”

The Congressional Review Act, or CRA, was enacted as part of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996. It is a tool that members of Congress can use to overturn certain federal rules, according to information from the Congressional Research Service.

However, the CRA was rarely employed until the administration of former President Donald Trump. Trump signed 14 resolutions of disapproval into law.

Those resolutions were largely aimed at rolling back policies enacted under former President Barack Obama.

When Capito announced her intention to introduce a CRA resolution against the power plant rules, the senator said she had “no illusions” that President Joe Biden would sign the resolution into law.

“The big stumbling block, of course, (is) the president will not sign this, and we don’t have enough (votes) to override his veto,” she said. “But we’re certainly sending a strong message that we don’t agree with what this is going to do to the heartland of the country and really all parts of the country.”

Numerous West Virginia officials and stakeholders of the state’s energy industries have vowed to fight the EPA’s rules.

Chris Hamilton, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, has said the rules are “specifically designed” to force the state’s nine coal-fired power plants to close.

“What EPA is doing is economic suicide,” he said. “West Virginians will lose jobs. Americans will continue to pay increasingly more expensive power bills. Our state and national electric systems will become even more unreliable as the grid weakens and base load power supplies are severely reduced. And just as West Virginia will likely import its future energy, America’s energy security will become more dependent on foreign countries and potentially foreign adversaries.”

In 2022, coal-fired electric power plants accounted for 89% of West Virginia’s total net generation of electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Hydroelectric power and wind energy contributed 7%, and natural gas provided about 4%.

As of the end of May, there were 9,957 employees working at underground mines in West Virginia and another 2,594 employees working at surface mines, according to data from the West Virginia Office of Miner’s Health Safety and Training.

The OMHST data also includes 587 quarry workers, 1,550 “prep plant” employees and 52,805 independent contractors, for a total of 67,493 employees of the state’s mining industry.