A long shot effort by Senate Democratic leadership to kill the Environmental Protection Agency’s rewrite of the Obama administration’s signature climate policy put more Democrats on the record backing President Trump’s repeal than Republicans against it.
Senators voted 41-53, killing a Democratic resolution attempting to scrap the EPA’s repeal and replacement of Obama-era carbon controls for power plants.
Most Republicans voted the kill the resolution, brought by Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. And three energy state Democrats — Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and Doug Jones of Alabama — joined Republicans.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a centrist, was the lone defector from the Republicans.
The EPA repealed the Obama administration rule — known as the Clean Power Plan — and replaced it with much narrower limits. That replacement, the Affordable Clean Energy rule, is also under attack in the courts from environmentalists and nearly two dozen states.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, blasted the Democratic resolution in remarks on the floor before the vote.
“They want to move forward legislation that would undo a regulatory success story of the Trump administration and reopen the Obama administration’s disastrous war on coal,” McConnell said of Democratic leadership.
