President, Congress Disagree On Climate Outlook
Reuters reported the White House on Tuesday threatened to veto a second Senate resolution of disapproval that would nullify the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule to reduce greenhouse emissions from new and modified power plants. The White House announcement followed a threat to veto a similar Senate resolution earlier in the day. The Washington Post called the votes “largely symbolic,” but said that the “overall message is that as Obama and his negotiators head to Paris for COP-21, there is considerable resistance at home to the key policy by which the US itself promises to reduce emissions.” The New York Times similarly reported that while the President has promised to veto the resolutions, “proponents believe their defiance will have diplomatic repercussions.” By “voting to block the rule, lawmakers want to telegraph to the world that Congress does not back the president’s climate pledges.” Similarly, Politico explained that Republicans hope the votes will send a message to diplomats gathering in Paris “that a majority of Congress is not behind the president’s agenda” and to “underscore the likelihood that a Republican president would abandon the president’s focus on climate change.” The Hill added that Democrats criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for bringing the resolutions to the floor “instead of more pressing matters, like funding homeland security.” Reuters reported that the League of Conservation Voters criticized the resolutions, calling them desperate and symbolic moves.
According to the Washington Times, the White House said that the second Senate resolution would “hurt the administration’s efforts to reduce carbon pollution ‘when the need to act, and to act quickly, to mitigate climate change impacts on American communities has never been more clear.’” The Senate resolution, said the White House, “seeks to block progress towards cleaner energy, eliminating public health and other benefits of up to $54 billion per year by 2030, including thousands fewer premature deaths from air pollution and tens of thousands of fewer childhood asthma attacks each year.”
What This Means For Small Business
The NFIB previously observed that the EPA standards for power plants “will drive up costs for small business owners and drain their customers of discretionary income.” The disagreement over these burdensome regulations ahead of the COP-21 discussions only creates further uncertainty for small business owners, stifling investment.
Additional Reading
The Wall Street Journal and The Hill provided additional coverage.
Note: this article is intended to keep small business owners up on the latest news. It does not necessarily represent the policy stances of NFIB.
