The White House announced Tuesday that President Obama would veto a Senate resolution to block new emissions rules for power plants if it made it to his desk.
The Senate is taking up two resolutions that would block the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s signature environmental regulation, on Tuesday. In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, the White House made official what was widely believed to be true: Obama is not going to undo his own regulation.
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“Because [the resolution] threatens the health and economic welfare of future generations by blocking important standards to reduce carbon pollution from the power sector that take a flexible, common sense approach to addressing carbon pollution, if the president were presented with [the measure], he would veto the bill,” the statement said.
The Senate is considering two “resolutions of disapproval” under the Congressional Review Act that would block the Clean Power Plan, which forces states to cut greenhouse gas emissions from its power plants by 2030.
The Clean Power Plan is the centerpiece of Obama’s plans to meet climate goals for the United Nations Conference on Climate Change talks, set to begin on Nov. 30 in Paris.
The Clean Power Plan sets goals for states to reduce their carbon emissions from new and existing sources. States could have until September 2018 to submit to their plans to the Environmental Protection Agency, if they were granted extensions.
The goal is to cut carbon emissions by 32 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels.
The resolutions give Congress authority under the Congressional Review Act to repeal the regulations. They can be passed with a simple majority and are not impeded by Senate rules that require 60 votes to agree to vote on a bill. The resolutions would require a super-majority of votes to override Obama’s promised veto.
In its statement, the White House said the Clean Power Plan would mean $54 billion in benefits annually by 2030 and would stop thousands of premature deaths due to air pollution. The regulation is also expected to stop tens of thousands of asthma attacks each year.
“Most importantly, the resolution would impede efforts to reduce carbon pollution from existing power plants — the largest source of carbon pollution in the country — when the need to act, and to act quickly, to mitigate climate change impacts on American communities has never been more clear,” the statement read.
Similar resolutions will come up for a vote in the House Energy and Commerce Commitee Tuesday afternoon.
