Senators: ‘Far-Left’ Group Pushes EPA To Implement Cap-And-Trade Without Congressional Approval

Republican senators urged the Environmental Protection Agency not to participate in a “sue-and-settle” arrangement with a law school policy institute that is trying to require the agency to develop rules implementing cap-and-trade, even though Congress refused to pass the law.

“In a recent rulemaking petition, the Institute for Policy Integrity (the Institute) seeks to compel EPA rules under three separate sections of the Clean Air Act,” Marten Law’s Dustin Till explains in a post. “The Institute first argues that Section 115 of the Clean Air Act, a never-before-used provision addressing international air pollution, requires EPA to order all 50 states to modify their state-level implementation plans to address greenhouse gas emissions.”

Four senators attacked the idea today in a letter to EPA assistant administrator Gina McCarthy, President Obama’s nominee to lead the agency.

“The potential negative impact in this case is that it threatens to expand environmental regulation beyond original intent of the law and could have detrimental effects on the livelihoods of our fellow Americans that are not always understood by academia,” wrote Sen. David Vitter, R-La., Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Wyo., and Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., in a letter today.

“When the price of transportation fuels increases for any reason, it is those with limited resources and fixed incomes whose livelihoods are most impacted by this added financial burden,” they added. “In recent years, we have consistently heard the term “environmental justice” as a reason for promulgating certain agency actions. We believe there also needs to be a measure of “economic justice” to ensure that Agency actions are not overly regressive and lack consideration for economic harm visited upon the very citizens these environmental laws are intended to protect.”

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