AUSTIN – On Friday, E&E News published an article on a recent meeting Texas Public Policy Foundation staff had with White House and EPA officials. The following are key excerpts from that article and are especially timely as the EPA indicates they will announce a rollback of the Clean Power Plan on Tuesday.

  • EPA is likely to formally put forward its plans to repeal the rule next week, an administration official told E&E News. The agency is also expected to ask for broad public input on how it should replace the rule.
  • TPPF is calling for EPA also to use this public comment period to take a hard look at how it regulates greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
  • Part of the problem with the endangerment finding, according to the group, is that EPA did not develop separate endangerment findings under Clean Air Act Sections 111(b) and 111(d) for stationary electric generating units — or EGUs — and instead "piggybacked" on the 2009 endangerment finding based on greenhouse gas emissions from mobile sources.
  • [TPPF] contend(s) that EPA did this because creating a separate endangerment finding for stationary sources would mean demonstrating that power plants contributed "significantly" to greenhouse gas emissions, something they say EPA would not have been able to prove.

 
Quotes from Chip Roy, director of the Center for Tenth Amendment Action at TPPF, who attended the Sept. 28 meeting with the White House Office of Management and Budget and EPA: 

  • The government is reconsidering the Clean Power Plan, and it needs to do that in a responsible manner and accordance with the rule of law. We feel that had not been done in that way by the prior administration.
  • [Carbon dioxide] is a natural substance; it's everywhere and in everything. Every biological and industrial process emits carbon. To make a finding that EGUs significantly contribute is a stretch.

 
The full article may be found here. (subscription required)
 
For more information or to request an interview with Mr. Roy, please contact Alicia Pierce at [email protected] or 512-472-2700.
 
Chip Roy is the director of the Center for Tenth Amendment Action at Texas Public Policy Foundation.
 
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit free-market research institute based in Austin. The Texas Public Policy Foundation aims to advance a societal framework that effectively fosters human flourishing based upon cooperation and mutually beneficial exchange of ideas and speech.
 
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