Senate defeats Rand Paul measure to curb EPA pollution rule

The Senate on Thursday blocked Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) bid to kill new EPA power plant pollution rules. 

In a 41-56 vote, lawmakers thwarted Paul’s resolution to overturn the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which requires curbs in smog and particulate-forming pollution from plants in 27 states in the eastern half of the country.

Six Republicans voted with Democrats against the resolution. Centrist Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.) joined Republicans in voting to overturn the rule.

The six Republicans who voted against the Paul resolution were Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Scott Brown (Mass.), Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Mark Kirk (Ill.).

The vote is just a skirmish in larger campaign-season battles over the White House green agenda, which has drawn attacks from Republicans on EPA regulations.

{mosads}The cross-state rule is under fire from many Republicans and some Democrats, who call it part of a broader EPA overreach that will kill jobs, and lessen the reliability of the electric power system by forcing coal-fired plants out of business.

Paul slammed the rule — which targets pollution that blows across state lines — in a floor speech that accused the Obama administration of pursuing a radical “job-killing” agenda that fails to recognize ongoing air quality improvements.

“The question is can we have clean air and jobs. Absolutely. But to have clean air and jobs you must have balance. We are at the point of becoming so overzealous and overreaching to such a great extent that we are killing jobs, we are killing industry,” Paul said.

“This administration has proposed a series of radical environmental changes to our laws,” Paul said, later alleging, “The president has allowed radicals to take over the administration.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) called the rule the “nail in the coffin for a lot of coal-fired power plants.”

But defenders of the measure, which aims to cut nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, say it will provide vital improvements to public health by lessening pollution linked to heart and respiratory problems, and call the claims about threats to power system reliability inaccurate.

EPA estimates that the cross-state measure would prevent up to 34,000 premature deaths, 15,000 nonfatal heart attacks, 19,000 cases of acute bronchitis, 400,000 cases of aggravated asthma, and 1.8 million sick days annually beginning in 2014.

President Obama had threatened to veto Paul’s measure.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), in a floor speech Thursday, said the rule is about cutting pollution that leads to deaths in states including Paul’s home state of Kentucky.

She also said that pollution-cutting rules help the economy.

“We are dealing with the health of the people, with the health of the children, with the ability of people to work, because if you can’t breathe you can’t work … and we are dealing with jobs, many, many, many jobs,” Boxer said, arguing that 1 million jobs can be created through pollution-cutting technologies.

Paul brought his resolution under the Congressional Review Act, a mid-1990s law that gives Congress an avenue to overturn regulations, and was part of then-Speaker Newt Gingrich’s (R-Ga.) “Contract with America.”

Resolutions under the act cannot be filibustered, but Paul’s measure may have been hurt by competing proposals that could provide political cover for members to oppose Paul’s effort.

Manchin and Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) are pushing a plan that would delay the compliance deadline by three years without nullifying the rule outright.

Alexander is floating legislation with Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) that would keep EPA’s cross-state rule in effect and write it into law but give power companies an additional year to implement it.

Alexander, on the floor, attacked Paul’s measure, alleging “this is no solution to a serious problem” and arguing it would cost tourism jobs and other industries in his state by stopping cuts in pollution that blows into Tennessee.

Tourists, he said, want to see the Great Smoky Mountains, “not the great smoggy mountains.”

The defeat of Paul’s resolution arrives during a larger battle between Republicans and the Obama administration over EPA regulations.

The White House is pledging to hold the line on several EPA rules after politically retreating on EPA ozone standards in September and punting them until after the election.

The White House is defending against GOP and industry attacks on the cross-state rule, upcoming utility mercury rules and other measures.

But Capitol Hill Republicans and GOP White House candidates have made attacking EPA rules a major priority, alleging they are a drag on the economy. 

Even presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, a former Utah governor who has positioned himself
as a moderate in the GOP field, has vowed to end what he calls EPA’s
“regulatory reign of terror.”

House members have approved multiple bills to roll back EPA rules and are pressuring their Senate counterparts to take them up.

The Obama administration has launched a counteroffensive against GOP
allegations that regulations are to blame for the sputtering economy,
arguing there’s no data to back up the assertion and that weak demand is
the real problem.

“[T]wo commonly repeated misconceptions are
that uncertainty created by proposed regulations is holding back
business investment and hiring and that the overall burden of existing
regulations is so high that firms have reduced their hiring,” states recent Treasury Department blog post by Jan Eberly, the assistant secretary for economic policy.

Obama himself has made the case for clean air rules. “This country is not going to compete in the 21st century based on who’s got the cheapest labor and the dirtiest air and the dirtiest water,” Obama said at a late-October campaign stop in Colorado.

— This story was updated at 1:22 p.m.