A Northern Virginia congressman and the commonwealth’s top lawyer traded jabs Tuesday over environmental cleanup rules in a rare face-to-face confrontation on Capitol Hill.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli testified at a House Oversight and Reform Committee meeting that new, tougher Environmental Protection Agency regulations on energy producers going into effect this year would blunt job growth in coal-dependent southwestern Virginia and raise utility costs on residents throughout the commonwealth.
That drew criticism from Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who accused Cuccinelli of political posturing and using his office to push an ideological agenda. He disputed that the regulations would result in an increase in electric rates and said since the Clean Air Act was amended in 1990 energy rates in Virginia have decreased nearly 36 percent when adjusted for inflation.
“Does that not call into question, perhaps then, the claims that in this particular case that won’t work and in fact electricity rates are going to go up?” Connolly asked Cuccinelli. “Given the experience we’ve had in the last 21 years, why should we give credence to that argument?”
Cuccinelli replied there wasn’t enough time to review the public response to the new regulations since they were passed down by the EPA in March.
“Certainly it would be a lot easier to analyze that argument if there was more than 134 days to look at 960,000 comments [sent to the EPA],” Cuccinelli said.
The new EPA rules control smokestack emissions from new and existing power plants for hazardous pollutants, like mercury and acid gas. That could cause some older facilities to shut down rather than pay for upgrades, although an EPA analysis says there will be temporary employment gains in the construction sector as companies retrofit their plants.
Cuccinelli, a climate change skeptic with a history of disputes with the EPA, said he didn’t oppose environmental efforts, but there’s “a desire for balance to be achieved [with job creation] as we gradually try to keep our air cleaner and improve the standard of living in this country.”
Republicans on the committee were hoping to postpone implementation of the new rules for months, but Democrats countered that Congress has considered the tougher regulations for years and the time for talk was over.
