Discussion of the impact of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulations, including proposed greenhouse gas emissions rules for new power plants, dominated the joint hearing of two U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee subpanels on April 2, which was held to review the agency’s $7.9 billion fiscal 2015 budget request.
“At a congressional budget hearing today, the administration once again revealed the wide gap between its promises and policies. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told the House budget panel that her agency will develop ‘common sense and achievable greenhouse gas standards for power plants.’ But in the same hearing, the administrator admitted she was ‘not aware of any’ commercial scale electric power plant that is currently using the technology her agency insists is adequately demonstrated and commercially available as required by law for setting the emissions standard for new power plants.
“It is not ‘common sense,’ much less ‘achievable,’ to base an emissions standard for the largest energy source of electricity generation on an unproven technology.”