House to Hold Key Hearing on the EPA Tuesday

The House Oversight Committee will hold hearings Tuesday concerning the Environmental Protection Agency’s anti-business actions during the Obama years. Titled “Lights Out: How EPA Regulations Threaten Affordable Power and Job Creation,” the hearing is likely to look into how the EPA is pushing cap and trade and other extreme anti-business measures via bureaucratic rules. In particular, the cross-state pollution rule in likely to come into focus. The EPA recently used that rule to threaten power plants across Texas and other states, despite the fact that the EPA’s own science shows that Texas plants have little if any effect on neighboring states. As we have reported here previously, the cross-state rule threatens to hike Texas power rates and cut the actual amount of power available to the Lone Star State. If this rule stands, it would be a particularly bitter pill for a state that has its own power grid and is a net energy exporter. The rule overall seems to have little to do with science, and more to do with killing jobs and strangling industry.

The Obama White House’s overall “war on coal” is also likely to get a close look. Prior to his election, then Sen. Obama described his energy plan concerning coal as one that would cause energy prices to “necessarily skyrocket.” Obama has set about, mostly through the EPA, to make good on that.