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Congressional Republicans introduce draft to curb powers of EPA
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Republicans in the House and Senate are continuing a push to curb the power of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – a group critics argue places regulatory burdens on American businesses, particularly in regards to the Clean Air Act, which has been enforced by the EPA since 1970.
On Friday, a number of congressional Republicans released a draft of a bill that strips the EPA of the power to impose limits on carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions as stipulated by the Clean Air Act.
The sponsoring Republicans pointed out the bill would prevent the EPA from making decisions that "should be left for Congress." It would also clarify that the CAA was not created to address climate change, "protect" manufacturers from EPA regulations that place them at a disadvantage next to competitors and, finally, eliminate a cap-and-trade tax that would increase electricity, gasoline and fertilizer prices.
"With this draft proposal, we are initiating a deliberative, transparent process that we hope will prevent EPA from imposing by regulation the massive cap-and-trade tax that Congress rejected last year," Upton, Whitfield, and Inhofe said in a joint statement. "We firmly believe federal bureaucrats should not be unilaterally setting national climate change policy."
"EPA's cap-and-trade tax agenda will cost jobs, undermine the competitiveness of America's manufacturers and, as EPA has conceded, will have no meaningful impact on climate," the Congressmen added.
Public Works Committee ranking minority member James Inhofe is one of the leaders of the legislation. The Oklahoma Senator has never been far from controversy regarding environmental movements and climate change, having once referred to global warming as "the second largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of church and state," according to the American Prospect.
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