Proposed regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency may hurt low-income families and small businesses and could overreach its authority, according to testimony heard before a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee.
The agency’s proposed regulations require significant decreases in carbon emissions and ground-level ozone, and would greatly extend the agency’s authority over land use by redefining affected waterways.
“We love our air and our mountains and our streams,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the full committee. “But I do worry about how severe the EPA is in its approach. Let’s also understand that there are impacts to jobs and the economy and people’s livelihood.”
Ranking Member Rep. Brenda Lawrence, D-Mich., however, argued that the regulations were reasonable.
“In developing these proposed rules, EPA engaged in extensive outreach to states, local government and industry,” she told the subcommittee on the interior, chaired by Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo. “EPA has also done a thorough job of assessing the economic and regulatory impact of the proposed rules.”
“Instead of killing jobs, like opponents had claimed, the pollution control industry has generated more than $300 billion in revenues and $44 billion in exports and supported 1.5 million jobs,” Lawrence said, citing 2008 data collected by the Department of Commerce.
Nonetheless, Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge was worried about the economic welfare of her state.
“The regulations will raise utility rates on individual citizens,” she told the Washington Examiner. “They certainly have a negative effect on the economy because of the strain on people. We’re talking about single mothers, the elderly, small businesses trying to make a payroll.”
The American Energy Alliance, free-market advocate nonprofit, also saw the problem for industries.
“It forces all of them to shut down or scrap what they’re doing because the technological means aren’t in place to contain the ozone, or they can’t afford the technology to comply with the regulations,” said spokesmanChris Warren, specifically on the proposed ozone regulations. “A lot of these small businesses are going to have to sink, as a result.”
Conversely, Susan Tierney, a senior adviser with the Boston-based Analysis Group consulting firm, said that critical industry officials presume the regulations will have “inflexible implementation, are based on worst-case scenarios, and assume that policy makers, regulators, and market participants will stand on the sidelines without doing their jobs to ensure lowest-cost and reliable outcomes.”
Aside from the economic impact, there was also concern that the proposed regulations overreach the environmental agency’s legal jurisdiction.
“They’re authorized to make guidelines, not mandate requirements,” Rutledge said. “The EPA regulations that go beyond the scope of the authority granted to them by Congress are not only unlawful, but also unnecessary and harmful to our communities.”
However, the agency’s orders may not be so rigid.
“The EPA has adopted a regulatory approach that offers significant flexibility to the states to fashion their own plans to control emissions from power plants in ways that work well with their own circumstances,” Tierney said.
