SENATE VOTE WILL CAUSE JOB LOSS AND INCREASE ELECTRICITY RATES
WASHINGTON, June 22, 2012 — The U.S. Senate held an up-or-down vote Wednesday on Sen. James Inhofe’s (R-Okla.) resolution (S.J. Res. 37) to overturn the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) onerous Utility MACT rule. The resolution was defeated by a vote of 53 to 46. The pending new EPA rule will be the most expensive power plant regulation in American history and is directed at plants that use coal—America’s most abundant and affordable energy source—to generate electricity. Surprisingly several senators from states that generate significant electricity from coal voted against the regulation, ensuring higher electricity rates for their constituents.
Senators voting against the Inhofe resolution and in support of the EPA rule included Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, both from states that generate more than 80 percent of their electricity from coal; Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, which gets nearly half of its electricity from coal; Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester of Montana, which generates 63 percent of its electricity with coal; and Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, which uses coal to generate nearly 60 percent of its electricity. All voted against the resolution and in support of an EPA rule that will increase electricity rates across the country.
Sen. Jim Inhofe said in a statement after the Senate rejected his attempt to send EPA’s rule back to the drawing boards, “Our fight is not over: we will continue to do everything possible to expose what the Obama-EPA’s damaging regulatory regime will do to destroy jobs and weaken our economy, and work every day in our efforts to stop President Obama’s war on oil, gas and coal.”
Recent independent studies show EPA’s new rules will force power plants to close across the country, cause electricity prices to spike by an average of 12 percent nationwide, and cost the economy well over a million jobs.
