The Environmental Protection Agency has put thousands of coal workers out of jobs in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Virginia; driven high-emitting industries to consider moving to China; and divided the nation, GOP lawmakers told EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on Tuesday in two separate House committee meetings focused on the agency’s fiscal year 2017 budget request.
”Despite our best efforts, you have succeeded in wrecking our economy and ruining the lives and livelihoods of thousands of our citizens. Regardless of one’s belief in the president’s climate change agenda, his drive, your drive to succeed has been devastating to the people of West Virginia,” charged Rep. Evan Jenkins, (R-W.Va.) during one session.
Comments regarding the effect of EPA regulations, particularly the Clean Power Plan, abounded at the hearings of the House Appropriations Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee and a joint gathering of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittees on Energy and Power and Environment and the Economy.
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) echoed Jenkins’ comment during the Energy and Commerce hearing. Griffith also suggested that if regulations make it too expensive for high-emitting industries to work in the U.S., they may opt to move operations to countries with weaker regulations, such as China or Mexico.
The EPA has requested an additional $50 million in its fiscal 2017 budget plan for activities related to the Clean Power Plan. The agency requested a total of $8.267 billion, $127 million more than the FY2016 Enacted budget of $8.139 billion The rule, which was stayed by the Supreme Court in February, required states to develop action plans to meet federally set emissions reduction goals. Under the Supreme Court stay, EPA cannot implement to rule until and if it passes judicial review. The agency can, however, work with states that voluntarily chose to continue to develop plans.
Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) was also harsh on McCarthy and her agency. “There are over 10,000 miners in my district who found themselves unemployed as a result of your ‘keep it in the ground’ strategy when it comes to coal,” Rogers said, noting that the committee has regularly cut EPA funding to send the message that it does support the agency’s actions. Rogers did not note the low cost of natural gas, which has contributed to a downturn in the coal industry.
The practice of underfunding the EPA, which is currently funded at 20 percent below fiscal 2000 levels, is not the right strategy, Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y) said during the Energy and Commerce subcommittees hearing “I know there are many members who believe that cutting the EPA budget will block the agency from issuing regulations and enforcing environmental laws, but in reality much of the budget supports states and local governments either through grants and loans or with information and technical assistance,” Tonko said.
In responses to the charges against her agency, McCarthy said the EPA recognizes the present and continued role of coal in the nation’s energy mix. “We are not looking to preclude coal from being a significant part of the energy system, and, indeed, we project it will continue to be,” she said at the Appropriations subcommittee hearing.
The administrator also touted the potential use of carbon capture and storage to keep the coal industry running. “I actually think that carbon sequestration is going to be important not just domestically but clearly internationally. Coal is going to be around, whether it’s in the U.S. or it’s in other countries, and it’s important for us to have technologies that can continue to allow coal to be part of the energy system,” she said.
McCarthy did not get a chance to respond to possibly her harshest criticism of the day, fired off in closing remarks by Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), chairman of the Energy and Power Subcommittee. “America really is a divided country today. I mean there really is a red and blue America and one of the reasons, certainly not the only reason, but one of the reasons — those of us on our side of the aisle, when we go back to our districts, a common theme that we hear is the excessive authority and pushiness, for lack of a better word, of EPA and that comes about for a lot of different reasons, the Clean Power Plan being one of those,” Whitfield said.
