Kathleen Hartnett White, Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Armstrong Center for Energy and the Environment at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, issued the following statement on today’s announcement of a new EPA rule for the regulation of CO2:
"EPA’s new rule to mandate a 30-percent reduction of CO2 from power plants is the most expansive assertion of regulatory authority over the economy and individuals in the Agency’s forty-year history. CO2, unlike genuine pollutants, is an ubiquitous byproduct of basic economic and personal activity. Once EPA imposes regulatory control over one sector, it will be forced to extend that control over all sectors. EPA’s characterization of this rule as ‘flexible' is another way of saying its reach is unlimited.
"Yet EPA’s rule will in no way avert the global warming invoked to justify it. By EPA’s own calculus, if CO2 emissions were eliminated from all generation of electricity, warming would be reduced by a mere 0.04 degrees centigrade by the year 2100. For this meaningless outcome, EPA would hobble economic growth and increase the economic pain of struggling families.
"The Congress has repeatedly rejected regulation of CO2, and the U.S. House of Representatives has repeatedly passed legislation to deny EPA this authority. Policies of this magnitude and consequence must be decided by our elected representatives — not by employees of the federal government — if our democracy and prosperity is to survive.”
Karen Lugo, Director of the Center for Tenth Amendment Action added:
"When states are forced to comply with energy rules mandated by a distant and inefficient EPA, they are treated as field offices of the federal government. The expected annual price tag of anywhere from $8.8 billion to $50 billion will hit lower-income families hardest, and will deny states the ability to balance local priorities in the best interests of families."
Kathleen Hartnett White is a Distinguished Senior Fellow-in-Residence and the Director for the Armstrong Center for Energy & the Environment. Former Chairman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (2001-2007).
Karen Lugo is Director of the Center for Tenth Amendment Action at theTexas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin.
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