Congress Debates Climate Action Plan

From beginning to end, a volatile three-hour-plus House of Representatives subcommittee hearing last week exposed sharp rifts between Republican and Democratic Congress members over energy regulations, climate change, and the value of President Barack Obama’s recently announced Climate Action Plan.

The hearing was held on Sept. 18, two days before the Environmental Protection Agency was scheduled to reveal a rewrite of a previously proposed regulation to limit carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants fueled by coal and natural gas. The proposal is part of Obama’s climate plan, which was announced in June (C&EN, July 1, page 5). Although the proposal’s details were not made public, its potential impact on coal use and CO₂ emissions colored most of the hearing’s discussions.

In opening statements, coal state Rep. Edward Whitfield (R-Ky.), chairman of the Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Energy & Power, stressed that the hearing focus was on oversight of federal agencies’ implementation of Obama’s climate plan. Whitfield noted that he and other subcommittee Republicans had requested 13 Cabinet officials and agency heads to testify, but only EPA Administrator Regina A. (Gina) McCarthy and Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz agreed to appear.

The two defended the President’s plan and emphasized that coal would remain a “significant” fuel for decades to come. However, Whitfield pointed to already-closed coal mines and power plants and said the carbon limit proposal “is almost certain to further economic uncertainty facing our nation’s utilities and have devastating effects on our community.”

Whitfield and other Republicans expressed doubt that climate change is even occurring and claimed other countries are backing away from commitments to reduce greenhouse gases. In his view, the U.S. has spent some $77 billion in climate-change activities in the past five years and has little to show for that investment.

But for ranking committee member Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), the world is at a critical crossroads, and without further greenhouse gas reductions, he said, “history will not treat us kindly. We will be the generation that ignored warnings and left future generations a violent and inhospitable climate.”

Waxman said the hearing was “long overdue,” and the appearance of two Cabinet members at a House subcommittee hearing was “unprecedented.” Waxman had been badgering Whitfield for more than two years to hold such a climate-change hearing, according to committee documents.

Waxman noted that the Republican-controlled House had voted 53 times to block climate-change-related legislation. “What is your plan?” he asked Republican committee members. “Saying ‘no’ to every solution is not a plan.”

As the hearing ended, Whitfield promised to continue pressing Cabinet members to testify and announced he would hold a follow-up hearing, possibly this week, to examine EPA’s proposal.