The Republican chairman of a Senate appropriations subcommittee is vowing to take the fight to block President Obama’s climate change regulations to an omnibus spending bill slated to be taken up next month.
“I am also looking to block [the climate rules] in the omnibus appropriations bill that Congress will take up in the coming weeks,” said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., while speaking on the Senate floor ahead of a vote on a resolution to repeal the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. Hoeven is the chairman of the appropriations committee’s homeland security subcommittee and also serves on the Senate energy committee.
The Clean Power Plan places states on the hook to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and is the centerpiece of the president’s climate change agenda. The plan is also the linchpin in the administration’s strategy to reach a global deal on emissions reductions at a United Nations conference in Paris Nov. 30-Dec. 11.
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Hoeven said he intends to include a rider in the spending bill to roll back the EPA plan, which comprises greenhouse gas rules for existing power plants. Many scientists say greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide, are raising the temperature of the Earth, causing droughts, floods and more severe weather.
The resolution that was approved on the floor Tuesday, 52-46, would repeal the Clean Power Plan, but the White House said Tuesday that the president would veto the resolution. Hoeven, therefore, will continue to look for ways to block the rule, which he says has been particularly unfair to his state, a large oil and coal producer.
Hoeven said the EPA, without warning, changed his state’s emissions target in the Clean Power Plan from an 11 percent reduction by 2030 in the proposal to a 45 percent reduction in the final rule.
He said the final Clean Power Plan “creates real problems” for North Dakota. He said the drastic change in the amount of emissions the state must reduce raises serious questions over whether the EPA followed the law in setting the goals.
Hoeven said he has sat down with his state’s regulators in pleading with the EPA to do something. He said the agency has assured his state will have three years to submit its compliance plan, which are due next year for other states. The plan contains provisions for states to apply for extensions in complying with its targets.
Hoeven’s Democratic counterpart, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, co-sponsored the resolution that was passed on the Senate floor Tuesday repealing the Clean Power Plan. North Dakota is also part of a 27-state lawsuit challenging the regulations in federal appeals court.
