Idaho Senators Oppose EPA Rulemaking

Washington, D.C.- U.S. Senators Mike Crapo and Jim Risch joined with a bipartisan group of senators in support of a resolution to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases. The resolution, sponsored by Senator Lisa Murkowski and 40 other senators, would throw out the endangerment finding on greenhouse gases and halt new EPA regulations set to take effect next year. A motion to proceed to the resolution failed 47-53.

"Allowing any federal agency to unilaterally move forward on issues of this magnitude not only allows politics to drive policy decisions; it locks out the voices of Idahoans, Americans and their elected representatives in Congress," Crapo said. "Such an important debate as climate change, and the potential to drive up costs on consumers and small businesses, should not be left in the hands of Washington, D.C., bureaucrats. I strongly oppose this action by the EPA and was therefore an original cosponsor and strong supporter of the Murkowski resolution. I am disappointed that the motion to proceed to the resolution failed, but we will continue fighting to make sure that the American people are heard."

"The EPA rule is nothing more than another power grab by a federal agency and an erosion of the Constitution of this great country. It would lead to a massive tax on every aspect of American life from the ringing alarm clock in the morning to the last light switch turned off at night and it would be levied by bureaucrats who are not held accountable to the voice of the people," said Risch. "The merits of global warming and how to address it should be debated in the legislative bodies of Congress, not decided by an unelected bureaucratic agency of the federal government."

Passed in 1970 and revised in 1990, the Clean Air Act gave EPA the authority to regulate air pollutants. Recently, the EPA has declared carbon dioxide to be a pollutant thus creating in itself far-reaching power never intended by Congress under the act.