Senate Democrats slammed the Trump administration’s proposed replacement for the Clean Power Plan on Friday, saying it would harm public health while exacerbating the effects of global warming.
A group of Democrats led by Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt opposing both the EPA’s proposed repeal of the President Barack Obama-era climate plan and its ideas for replacing it. The letter was sent ahead of the midnight deadline to submit comments on the EPA’s repeal of the climate plan.
“The power sector is well on its way to meeting the Clean Power Plan’s emission limits,” the letter read. “Yet, instead of spending time and resources building on this success, EPA, under your leadership, is choosing to wage a war on climate science and proposing to repeal the Clean Power Plan.”
The comments point out that carbon dioxide emissions from the electricity sector fell in 2017 by more than 27 percent from 2005 levels, according to federal data. Household electricity bills also decreased in the same period.
Repealing the Obama climate rules would create greater “uncertainty for the power industry,” while placing U.S. “communities at further risk from the impacts of climate change,” the Democrats continued. “Repealing the Clean Power Plan also means the EPA is walking away from its clear obligation to address climate change.”
Sens. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Cory Booker, D-N.J., Edward Markey, D-Mass., Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.,, and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., joined Carper on the letter.
Carper and the Democrats also consider Pruitt’s idea to replace the rule with a narrowly defined regulation would be a farce, not improving emissions reduction and making the air worse for public health.
“Adding insult to injury, your agency is considering replacing the Clean Power Plan with regulations that will not reduce power-sector carbon emissions,” the comments read. “Worse, they will likely increase electricity costs and the emissions of traditional air pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide.”
They cite recent studies by scientists at Harvard’s School of Public Health and other universities that show a narrowly focused Clean Power Plan that deals only with power plants, not state emissions and renewable energy, would drive up sulfur dioxide emissions by 3 percent “and result in premature lives lost.”
“It would be a tragedy for the agency to shirk its legal obligation to act on climate change and exacerbate other environmental and health threats,” the Democrats said. “That is why we request that you abandon plans to proceed.”
Pruitt told House appropriators on Thursday that he “can only take the steps that Congress authorizes me to take.” He said the fault of the Obama administration was it tried to get around Congress and decide the climate strategy for the U.S. through regulation.
“I have actually introduced an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking in the marketplace to solicit comment on our authority to regulate [greenhouse gas emissions],” he said, speaking of the Clean Power Plan replacement.
Pruitt will seek to craft a rule through a narrow interpretation of section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, which governs existing power plant emissions. The Obama EPA used the section to regulate emissions on a state-by-state basis, instead of a plant-by-plant basis. Oklahoma and other states argued in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that the interpretation of the law was an illegal overreach. It has not been settled by the courts.
Both the repeal of the Clean Power Plan and its replacement are not expected to be finalized until at least the end of the year.
