President Obama - EPA's War on Coal | McConnell takes His Case to The Governors To Resist the EPA

Today in Washington, D.C. - March 20, 2015:
Congress is not in session today. The Senate will reconvene on Monday and take up the Senate’s budget resolution. The House will reconvene on Monday at Noon.

Yesterday, for the third day in a row, Senate Democrats voted to filibuster S. 178, the bipartisan Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015. That makes it the fifth time they've voted to block moving forward on the bill.

Yesterday the House passed along party lines 232 to 186 with all Democrats voting against S.J. Res. 8 — "Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the National Labor Relations Board relating to representation case procedures."

EPA's War on Coal and & States
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called on the Nation’s Governors to reject the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed EPA regulation that requires states to dramatically restructure their electricity systems based on how the agency thinks electricity should be produced and used in each state. The EPA’s demands, McConnell noted, are “far beyond its legal authority.” In a letter to all 50 Governors, Leader McConnell wrote that he has “serious legal and policy concerns regarding the proposal.”

Leader McConnell asked the Governors to “carefully review the consequences before signing up for this deeply misguided plan. I believe you will find, as I have, that the EPA’s proposal goes far beyond its legal authority and that the courts are likely to strike it down. All of which raises the very important question of why the EPA is asking states at this time to propose their own compliance plans in the first place.

“This proposed plan is already on shaky legal grounds, will be extremely burdensome and costly, and will not seriously address the global environmental concerns that are frequently raised to justify it. Moreover, declining to go along with the administration’s legally dubious plan will give the other two branches of government time to address the proposal and will not put your state at risk in the interim. It will provide time for the courts to rule on whether the EPA’s proposed rule is legal, and it will give Congress a chance to address numerous concerns surrounding this latest power grab by the EPA.”

In a reportthis morning, The New York Times writes, “Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has begun an aggressive campaign to block President Obama’s climate change agenda in statehouses and courtrooms across the country . . . .The campaign of Mr. McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is aimed at stopping a set of Environmental Protection Agency regulations requiring states to reduce carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants, the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

“Once enacted, the rules could shutter hundreds of coal-fired plants in what Mr. Obama has promoted as a transformation of the nation’s energy economy away from fossil fuels and toward sources like wind and solar power. Mr. McConnell, whose home state is one of the nation’s largest coal producers, has vowed to fight the rules." . . .

The NYTalso discussed the McConnell strategy: “As he campaigned across Kentucky’s economically ravaged coal towns last fall, Mr. McConnell frequently declared that he would do everything in his power to battle what he calls Mr. Obama’s ‘war on coal.’ . . .

“Using its existing authority, the E.P.A. will require each state to submit an individual plan for cutting emissions from power plants. Ultimately, the success or failure of the plan will depend on how — and if — states comply with the rules. It will also depend on the courts. Coal-dependent states and coal mining companies are already planning legal challenges to the regulations. Those coal-dependent states are where Mr. McConnell has trained his fire. . . .

“Mr. McConnell contends that the Obama administration has bypassed Congress and stretched the boundaries of existing law to impose climate change regulations — and that he intends to step outside of Congress and use creative legal methods to push back. . . . [L]ongtime experts in the field of climate change law and policy say that Mr. McConnell’s unconventional efforts could prove formidable.

“‘The majority leader is a master tactician,’ said Scott Segal, a lobbyist with the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani and the director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, which represents power companies. ‘He understands the legal vulnerabilities, and he’s acutely aware that not all solutions go through traditional legislative channels.’ Over the coming weeks and months, Mr. McConnell’s office intends to continue to push to undermine the climate regulations, using a host of legal, lobbying and legislative tools.”

---

Tags: Obama, EPA, War on Coal, War on States, Senate Dems, filibuster, Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!