Senators Sessions and Inhofe Come Out Swinging against EPA

by Myron Ebell on April 12, 2014

in Blog

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Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) announced at an Environment and Public Works Committee hearing this week on the nomination of Janet McCabe to be assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency for air and radiation that he couldn’t vote to confirm McCabe if she insists on denying the conclusion of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that there is no historic trend in the incidence and severity of tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons).  Here’s the video clip.

Climate Progress, an especially deranged outpost of the ironically-named Center for American Progress’s Think Progress web site, immediately accused Sen. Sessions of opposing McCabe “because she accepts climate science.”

At the same hearing, Senator James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), former chairman of the committee, announced that he will start offering resolutions of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act for every new EPA air regulation until the agency starts doing ongoing economic and employment assessments for all Clean Air Act regulations on an economy-wide basis.  Such assessments seem to be required by Section 321 (a) of the Clean Air Act, but the EPA has always (during previous Republican and Democratic administrations as well as the current administration) limited its analyses to the economic effects of only the facilities directly regulated.

According to an article in Environment and Energy Daily, Sen. Inhofe’s intention in requiring CRA votes on the Senate floor is to put Senators on record as to whether they support economically-damaging rules.  He has also introduced a bill, S. 2161, along with 30 co-sponsors, to correct the EPA’s interpretation of Section 321(a).  Murray Energy has filed a suit in federal court to compel the EPA to analyze the economy-wide employment effects of Clean Air rules.

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