This legislation (Senate Joint Resolution 24) would disapprove and nullify the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule relating to “Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units,” published on October 23, 2015. According to Congressional Quarterly, the EPA rule “sets different emissions targets for 49 states based on their existing energy profile and requires each state to reduce emissions by a certain amount by 2030.” Upon passage of the bill by the House of Representatives, Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), the original Senate sponsor, said in a statement, “Hardworking families cannot afford these crushing regulations that threaten jobs and affordable energy while doing little to actually improve the environment.”
The Senate passed S. J. Res. 24 on November 17, 2015 by a vote of 52 to 46 (Roll Call 306). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because the federal government should not hinder existing power plants with regulations that stifle energy production and increase rates, there is no authorization in the Constitution for the federal government to interfere in the energy sector, and CO2 is not a pollutant.
