President Obama recently unveiled a new rule to combat climate change by forcing state’s like Virginia to cut their carbon pollution. But this summer the Supreme Court shot down a new EPA rule aimed at limiting mercury pollution, which has conservatives calling for the new rule to be halted.
The EPA just unveiled a new rule called the Clean Power Plan which will force Virginia to cut its carbon emissions. But earlier this summer the Supreme Court ruled against the EPA’s rule forcing state’s to cut their Mercury pollution because the agency didn’t factor in the cost of implementing the new rule.
Republican Congressman Morgan Griffith represents southwest Virginia and says businesses in his area were already complying with the Mercury rule before the Supreme Court stepped in. “You know, the rule went into effect this spring, and the coal-fired plants in my district already shut down. They’re not going to un-mothball them, they’re not going to change their plans.”
Griffith is calling for the EPA to halt its carbon rule because he thinks there’s a good chance the Supreme Court will rule against it too. The House already passed a bill to do just that - halt the rule until the High Court gets a say.
“The United States House says it’s wrong. If they really believe they have a right to do this, let the courts settle it first and then come back to us.”
The state’s Democrats are lauding the new carbon rule because they say climate change is a real threat.
Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner says Republicans are wrongly lashing out at the EPA.
“Clearly some of the EPA rules and regulations have caused challenges in the coal industry. But the biggest challenge to the coal industry has been the much cheaper price of natural gas. And as you see utilities themselves make the decisions to switch over because of the economic price difference.”
Warner says the carbon rule is essential for the commonwealth’s long term health.
“There will be challenges implementing Carbon but we also know that the very real threats of climate change on the parts of Norfolk flood on a regular basis. And some of the projections going forward in terms of the threat this poses, not just along our shoreline but to the whole world.”
But for Congressman Griffith it’s all about the coal industry jobs in his district. “There are thousands of jobs connected with the coal industry. Southwest Virginia is in a major economic downturn because of what the EPA has been doing. Natural gas prices have hurt a little bit byt they could survive that. It’s this one rule after another coming out of the Obama administration which affects coal.”
Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine doesn’t think it’s fair to compare the Mercury rule that was just rejected and the carbon rule - or Clean Power Plan - that was just unveiled.
“Because of the way the Clean Power Plan has been put together, which is basically first, not one size fits all, every state gets its own target. That is already taking into account significantly kind of economic impact and the particular conditions of each state.”
Kaine says the EPA has already adapted to the Court’s demand that they look at the cost of their policy.
“As I understood that Supreme Court ruling basically said in crafting a regulation you need to take into account soft of economic impacts. When you’re crafting it not once you crafted it, okay, now we crafted it let’s look at economic impacts. So it’s very a subtle case in terms of win you have to factor in the economic impact regulations.”
There’s no debate about one thing: the new EPA carbon rule is going to be challenged. But how the Supreme Court rules is anyone’s guess.
