The top Republican in the Senate is looking at unprecedented legislative tactics to try to stop the EPA from regulating carbon pollution from coal plants.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) took to the Senate floor on Thursday (video here) to tell his colleagues about a letter he had just written to U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, the head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The letter asks if McConnell and 41 Republican cosponsors can use the Congressional Review Act to reverse a proposed regulation — a rule that is not final — setting carbon standards for new power plants.
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) allows Congress to repeal a final rule issued by the Executive Branch within 60 legislative days of being published in the Federal Register. The proposed rule on carbon standards was published in the Federal Register last week. No senator has filed a CRA challenge to a rule that is not yet final. And even for finalized rules, the CRA has only succeeded once since its creation in 1996.
“We believe the EPA regulation in question clearly meets the definition for Congressional Review under this statute,” McConnell argued on the Senate floor. Essentially he claims that coal plant construction that starts after the proposed rule is published would be liable under the standard — this is what the GAO will have to consider. Chuck Young, Managing Director of Public Affairs at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), told Climate Progress that the agency had received the request. What happens next is that it will go through the same process that all Congressional requests go through before any decisions get made — that process takes a “couple weeks.”
