Manchin, Coats offer alternative to Paul’s EPA disapproval rule

“Let me be clear: I believe that both of these rules aim to accomplish important objectives, but as they’re written, they’re nearly impossible to realize,” Manchin said on the Senate floor. “If we don’t extend the deadline for utilities to responsibly comply, we’re going to lose the jobs and the reliability of the electricity that we depend upon.”

{mosads}The EPA’s cross-border air-pollution rule requires reduced power plant emissions rules that might affect neighboring states, and the utility MACT rule requires reduced mercury emissions at power plants. The Manchin-Coats bill would extend the cross-state rule by three years and the utility MACT rule by two years, so that the compliance deadline for both rules would be January 2017.

“We are not here today to advocate in favor of pumping more toxins into the air,” Coats said. “We’re here today to say we need a reasonable provision in place that would allow these industries to continue to spend the billions of dollars which they’re spending, and to do it in a timely manner so that we can reach the goal established in the Clean Air Act and other regulations.

“The timeline proposed by the EPA is unattainable. It’s unreasonable, it’s punitive, it costs jobs, it costs money.”