Elizabeth Bewley, Gannett Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - Scaling back environmental regulations on coal ash and power plant pollution will be a top priority for House Republicans when they return from summer recess next week, according to a memo that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor sent fellow Republicans on Monday.
Several proposed or recently enacted Environmental Protection Agency rules addressing coal ash disposal and emissions from power plants number among Cantor's list of 10 "job-destroying regulations" that the GOP will seek to undo in the next few months, his memo said.
Also on the list is a push by the National Labor Relations Board to require Boeing to return an airplane assembly line to Washington State from South Carolina - a move opposed by Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander.
"These regulations are reflective of the types of costly bureaucratic handcuffs that Washington has imposed upon businesspeople who want to create jobs," Cantor wrote.
The memo offers a timeline of when the House will schedule votes to undo or delay these rules.
The first EPA regulation lawmakers will take up in September requires Tennessee and 26 other states to cut power plant emissions that cause air quality problems in downwind states.
The EPA says the rule's impact on utility prices will be within the range of normal price fluctuations and estimates that between 650 and 1,700 premature deaths will be avoided in Tennessee because of reduced pollution. But Cantor's memo says the rule could cause annual electricity bills to rise by 12 to 24 percent in some parts of the country.
During the week of Sept. 19, the House will vote on legislation that would delay implementation of this rule until an analysis of the cumulative impact of EPA rules has been completed, according to the memo.
In October or November, the House will vote on a bill that would prevent the EPA from regulating coal ash as hazardous waste and instead allow states to manage ash as municipal garbage, the memo said.
Environmentalists point to a massive coal ash spill at TVA's Kingston power plant in 2008 as proof that states aren't doing enough to control the waste. But many coal-state lawmakers say federal regulation would raise utility costs and hinder industries that reuse coal ash in commercial products such as wallboard, carpet or concrete. More than 100,000 jobs could be lost, Cantor wrote.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Brentwood, voted from her seat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee to advance the bills preventing regulation of coal ash as hazardous and requiring an analysis of EPA rules.
Cantor also said he expects the Energy and Commerce Committee this winter to prevent the EPA from tightening air quality standards to reduce ozone pollution from power plants and other sources. The EPA says current standards aren't strict enough to protect air quality and public health.
In his memo, Cantor wrote that stricter standards could cost more than $1 trillion over a decade, making such a rule "possibly the most harmful of all the currently anticipated Obama administration regulations."
Cantor also said the House will take up a bill during the week of Sept. 12 that would prevent the NLRB from ordering any company to relocate, shut down or transfer operations for any reason. The bill comes after the NLRB issued a complaint against Boeing in April, arguing that the aircraft manufacturer moved an assembly line to South Carolina to retaliate against striking unionized workers in Washington.
Alexander introduced a similar bill in the Senate in May. He has said the NLRB's Boeing complaint could threaten jobs in right-to-work states such as Tennessee.
While GOP efforts to repeal or delay federal regulations may succeed in the House, they are unlikely to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate.
You Might Be Interested In