SENATE REJECTS INHOFE’S DISAPPROVAL RESOLUTION OF EPA’S MERCURY RULE

Farris Willingham
GHG Monitor
06/22/12

The Senate this week voted down a resolution of disapproval shepherded by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) intended to nullify an Environment Protection Agency rule regulating mercury and other toxic air pollutants emitted from coal- and oil-fired power plants. Senators voted 46-53 June 20 against moving forward with consideration of the measure. Inhofe needed 50 votes to proceed with a vote formally disapproving of EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS). Mandated under the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments and finalized in December, the standards require utilities to install pollution-control technology like scrubbers, baghouses, dry sorbent injection technology or electrostatic precipitators on all coal- and oil-fired units within the next three to four years. Some units will be granted a fifth year to comply on a case-by-case basis if the local reliability of the power grid is threatened, according to EPA. Inhofe argued that MATS will cost billions to implement, kill coal-fired power generation and could hurt the reliability of the power grid in the years to come.

Five coal state Democrats crossed party lines to vote with all but five Republicans on the resolution, brought to the Senate floor under a procedure called the Congressional Review Act. Passed in 1996, the mechanism allows Congress to invalidate federal rules pending they receive a simple majority of votes in both chambers, along with the signature of the President. Reports had indicated that Inhofe was not likely to get the 50 votes needed for passage. Even if he had gathered enough support, the Obama Administration said earlier this week that it would veto the resolution if it were to make it to the President’s desk. In a Statement of Administration Policy released June 18, the White House said that the resolution would “undermine more than 40 years of Clean Air Act progress” and harm public health by blocking MATS.

MATS Supporters Cheer Results

Congressional supporters of MATS cheered the results of the vote. “I am very pleased that the Senate stood strong for protecting the health of our children and families by defeating a proposal that would have prevented the EPA from implementing landmark clean air protections,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, in a statement. “The [resolution] would have allowed polluters to release more toxic, poisonous emissions into our air, leading to premature deaths, heart attacks and asthma.”  Environmental groups also spoke out in support of the final verdict. “The Sierra Club applauds the U.S. Senate’s sound rejection of Sen. Inhofe’s latest polluter-backed ploy to put the health and safety of American children and families at risk,” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Inhofe said he would continue fighting EPA’s regulations and President Obama’s “war on oil, natural gas and coal.” “While we were not able to put a stop Utility MACT today, our momentum continues to build, as a growing chorus is rising up against the Obama-EPA’s radical green agenda,” he said in a June 20 statement. He added: “Our fight is not over: we will continue to do everything possible to expose what the Obama-EPA’s damaging regulatory regime will do to destroy jobs and weaken our economy, and work every day in our efforts to stop President Obama’s war on oil, gas and coal.”

Rockefeller Criticizes Resolution as ‘Waste of Time and Money’

Among the opposition to Inhofe’s bill, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) slammed the resolution in a floor speech hours ahead of the vote. “Here we are with another all-or-nothing resolution destined to fail. This foolish action wastes time and money that could have been invested in the future of coal,” he said. Oneof the Senate’s most vocal coal advocates, Rockefeller said he did not support the legislation because it “does nothing to look to the future of coal.” He said that instead of taking an “all-or-nothing” approach to EPA regulations, government and the coal industry should “face reality” and focus on securing coal’s future in the long term. “Let me be clear. I’m frustrated with some of the top levels of the coal industry, but I’m not giving up hope for real solutions for clean coal,” he said in a statement, adding, “we have the chance here to not just grudgingly accept the future—but to boldly step into that future.”

Rockefeller criticized coal industry leaders for concentrating their efforts on retaliating against “false enemies” and denying “real problems” instead of searching for answers. “West Virginians understandably worry that a way of life and the dignity of a job is at stake. Change and uncertainty in the coal industry is unsettling. But my fear is that concerns are also being fueled by the narrow view of others with divergent motivations—one that denies the inevitability of change in the energy industry, and unfairly leaves coal miners in the dust,” he said.

The Senator said he is concerned about utilities that have focused more on earning money rather than updating or replacing power plants that have exceeded their expiration date. “It’s important to be truthful to miners that coal plants will close because of decisions made by corporate boards long ago – not just because of EPA regulations, but because the plants are no longer economical as utilities build low-emission natural gas plants,” Rockefeller said, adding that “unless this industry aggressively leans into the future, coal miners will lose the most.”

One possible middle ground is legislation currently being drafted by Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) that would double the MATS compliance period for utilities to six years. Inhofe criticized the Alexander-Pryor legislation in a floor speech June 12, but Alexander defended the approach in an op-ed last week in the newspaper The Tennessean. “While some have said this rule is anti-coal, I say that it is pro-coal, because pollution control equipment guarantees coal a future in our clean energy mix,” he said.