Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is taking the unusual step of attending a Wednesday hearing to face off with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy, setting up a much-anticipated showdown over her agency’s proposed clampdown on emissions from power plants.
The question for the proposed rule’s advocates and detractors is simple — will the Kentucky Republican’s presence make a difference?
McConnell faces a tough road to block or handcuff the power plant rule through legislation. Last month, he called on the states to avoid complying with the rule, which the EPA is expected to finalize this summer. Environmental groups and Democrats said that this signaled he has run into a legislative roadblock.
“He isn’t going to achieve his goal. He’s just showing that it’s important to him, but clearly the president said he would veto [bills that scrap the rule] and he doesn’t have two-thirds to override,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate caucus, told the Washington Examiner.
Industry groups and Republicans, though, suggest McConnell’s participation in the hearing on the EPA fiscal 2016 budget request is one prong in a larger strategy to undermine the rule, which is the centerpiece of Obama’s climate agenda.
“He’s been at this a long time, and I think that it’s fair to say that he has a bigger plan that goes well beyond just legislation and oversight, and that’s one of the reasons he’s going out to the governors,” said Jeff Holmstead, former President George W. Bush’s EPA air chief who now lobbies for energy companies with Bracewell & Giuliani. “It’s important for them to see that he’s raising issues through the appropriations process or through oversight.”
McConnell inserted himself into the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Environment so he could oversee the EPA budget. He has previously said he would “do everything I can to try to stop” the EPA proposal, which he says would kill coal-mining jobs in his state and raise energy costs. His anticipated appearance Wednesday shows how much he is prioritizing that mission.
McConnell’s appearance at the hearing won’t get Republicans over the 60-vote threshold needed to pass substantive or spending legislation that blocks the rule. Republicans failed to get that much support on an amendment to ensure the EPA couldn’t withdraw federal highway funds from states that don’t comply with the rule, although the agency doesn’t have that authority anyway, noted David Doniger, director of the climate and clean air program with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“There are a number of test votes this year and they show that McConnell doesn’t have 60 votes for handcuffing the Clean Power Plan,” Doniger told the Examiner.
Republicans and a handful of Democrats don’t like the EPA initiative, which would slash electricity emissions that scientists say drive up global warming 30 percent by 2030 compared with 2005 levels.
Snagging the 67 votes required to override a veto from President Obama, which he has said he would use on any legislation that undercuts the rule, would be difficult. Most Democrats back the rule, saying it would slow greenhouse gas emissions. They contend doing so would save money by lessening extreme weather linked to climate change and spare medical costs by shuttering older, dirtier coal-fired power plants.
“The bigger issue isn’t that Sen. McConnell wants to be at a hearing. I think the bigger thing is that what Sen. McConnell is saying on this issue is not in step with a majority of scientists or public polling,” said Josh Saks, senior legislative representative with the National Wildlife Federation.
Still, McConnell’s planned attendance stands in contrast to Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic minority leader from Nevada, who rarely joined committee hearings when he was majority leader. Reid has his parochial issues as well — his office said the last time he attended a hearing on Yucca Mountain, the proposed nuclear waste site the Nevada Democrat vehemently opposes, was in 2006.
The difference between Reid on Yucca and McConnell on the Clean Power Plan is that Republicans are playing from behind knowing that Obama will veto it, Doniger said.
“Reid didn’t have to show up at the Yucca hearings,” Doniger said. “The president has made it clear that he will not sign a bill” nixing the power plant rule.
Some lawmakers are experimenting with legislation that would delay implementation of or complying with the rule. The House Energy and Commerce Committee, for example, began considering a bill Tuesday that in part would require states to submit compliance plans only if and after the power plant rule survives an expected legal challenge.
Spending bills offer some hope for concessions on the power plant rule because they’re considered must-pass legislation, said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito. The West Virginia Republican said it “remains to be seen” whether Obama would veto a spending bill that includes changes supported by a sizable number of Democrats.
“I think the reason [McConnell] is showing up at appropriations to make his voice heard is because I believe, and I think he does too, that the appropriations process is a way to right the ship a little bit knowing that the president wouldn’t sign major legislation,” she told the Examiner.
