TECH

McConnell, GOP may hit brick wall on EPA rules

James Bruggers
@jbruggers
  • Sen. Mitch McConnell says reining in EPA will be among his top priorities%2C and that the budget process is his best tool for doing that.
  • Rep. John Yarmuth%2C D-Louisville%2C predicts two years of intense fights and says %22we are in for a very hard time.%22
  • President Obama is expected to veto any Congressional action that seeks to block his climate change agenda.

The politics of energy and the environment could be louder than ever next year, with Sen. Mitch McConnell promising to aim squarely at President Barack Obama's coal and climate plans from the Louisville politician's likely new perch atop the Senate.

But in the end, McConnell's and his fellow Republican's six-year war on the president's environmental agenda could slam into a brick wall during Obama's last two years, despite the GOP's new, larger margin in the House and Senate take-over, experts and political observers agreed.

"I don't see Congress accomplishing much in any policy area over the next two years," said Melissa K. Merry, assistant professor of political science at the University of Louisville, whose expertise includes domestic environmental policy. "There is significant gridlock."

One of the biggest targets will be Obama's Climate Action Plan, including two pending rules to curb climate pollution from power plants. Those regulatory actions were sharply attacked by both candidates during Kentucky's recent Senate race in which McConnell soundly defeated Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes.

But industry lobbyists and environmental advocates alike, political scientists and some politicians on both sides of the aisle acknowledge that Senate voting rules and the president's veto pen will make it hard to turn Republican legislation into law, and especially difficult to block policies the president wants as his legacy, such as action on climate change.

That doesn't mean Republicans won't try, said Scott Segal, a founding partner of the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, who works on energy issues for industry clients.

In a conference call, Segal predicted votes to set aside the president's power plant rules. He said there also could be an effort to undermine the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Supreme Court-approved authority to regulate greenhouses gases under the Clean Act Act, the agency's so-called "endangerment finding."

Story continues below this video of Mitch McConnell discussing coal

"But I'm not sure we have the votes to actually advance those across the finish line, particularly if they are vetoed," Segal said.

Instead, he said, Republican leadership in the Senate could achieve some "narrowly tailored" changes to the power plant rules, such as extending compliance deadlines.

In order to preserve his climate agenda, the president may be willing to compromise in other environmental areas, possibly on anticipated new smog standards, said Jeffrey Holmstead, former assistant EPA administrator for air under President George W. Bush, and another Bracewell & Giuliani partner.

He pointed out that Obama already once rejected a tougher smog rule.

Others have speculated he may be willing to approve the Keystone XL pipeline to carry Canadian tar sands oil to the Gulf Coast.

Merry also noted that Congress is not in charge of administrative rule-making, such as how the EPA is writing its separate regulations to control climate pollution from new and existing power plants.

Once any climate rules become final, Congress could vote to overturn them, she said. But that, too, she said, would require an unlikely presidential signature.

Voters' voices

For some Democratic voters, continued gridlock could be a good thing if it means turning back bills they view as anti-environment.

Nash Cox of Frankfort, for example, said she wants Obama to use his veto pen to fight what she expects to be a full attack on the president's climate agenda.

"I want him to hold his position that this is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, and to be as strong as he possibly can be about it," said Cox, who supported Grimes despite Grimes' own attacks on the EPA and support for coal.

Still, Cox said she is worried about McConnell, and his stated lack of concern about global warming.

"They will make it very hard to go forward," she said.

On the flip side, some McConnell supporters are looking for the veteran lawmaker to use all his skills from 30 years in the Senate to carry out his campaign promises to protect coal and block the EPA.

"I don't agree the sky is falling, and that we can blame (climate change) all on coal and fossil fuels," said Eastern Kentucky businessman Robert Lewis, a former coal miner who owns a security camera and bugler alarm business in Whitesburg. "I believe the EPA completely needs to be overhauled."

He said friends and family members are hurting as the coal industry has shed thousands of jobs in eastern Kentucky in recent years.

"I really think that Mitch is serious about getting some stuff done," Lewis said. He also said he holds some hope that McConnell can secure enough votes — two thirds of the Senate — to override any presidential vetoes on coal-friendly bills.

"Maybe it's the liberals and not the Republicans who are wrong on some of these issues," he said.

Congressional fights

Kentucky's latest quarterly report on the industry counted 7,229 coal mining jobs in eastern Kentucky, down 50 percent since 2011. While EPA critics blame an Obama "war on coal," experts have also attributed the change to a shift toward cheaper, abundant natural gas, and less costly coal from the Illinois Basin and elsewhere.

With the industry in transition, there's already been a fight in Congress over coal and climate, an environmental backlash mostly played out in the Republican-led House, even as scientists have become increasingly convinced of a link between human activities such as burning fossil fuels like coal, and climate change.

On Nov. 2, the world's top scientists released the most comprehensive climate assessment yet, warning of "irreversible and dangerous impacts" from carbon pollution. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also concluded with 95 percent certainty that people are largely to blame.

Republicans in Congress don't agree with that science, said Rep. Ed Whitfield, Republican from Kentucky's 1st District in Western Kentucky and chairman of the Energy and Power subcommittee.

He downplayed any man-made role, adding: "We don't believe it's the number one issue facing mankind."

Democrats in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce have counted 223 anti-environment votes during the current Congress, including votes targeting EPA's authority and funding and and block the new power plant rules.

Republicans characterize their legislation as common sense, especially in coal-dependent states like Kentucky and Indiana.

"We are going to have an aggressive agenda," targeting the EPA's pending climate change rules for power plants, Whitfield promised. "This is about jobs and economic growth."

But even if Republican's cannot get the president to sign their bills, last week's election makes sure that the high-stakes political fight over coal, climate change and the economy will get a full airing, Whitfield said.

"The important thing, truthfully, is that there is going to be a debate about it," he said.

"It will be a very loud debate," said U.S. Representative John Yarmuth, a Louisville Democrat.

"We are in for a very hard time," he said. "There is going to be a concerted effort to roll back a lot of the protections we have come to rely on, and that have done a lot of good," he said. "It will be a constant defensive battle over the next two years."

Yarmuth, however, said he does not believe Republicans will be able to block the president's climate agenda because of the president's veto authority, and the need for McConnell to get 60 votes to pass legislation in the Senate.

In addition, he said, voters won't stand for it.

"The vast majority of American people want clean air and clean water, and they want something done about climate change," he said.

Climate legacy

One thing Whitfield and some environmentalists agree on is that acting on climate change is important to Obama.

Obama has taken more action on climate change than any other president, including dramatically increasing fuel efficiency of motor vehicles and proposing the first-ever carbon pollution standards for power plants, said Melinda Pierce, legislative director with the Sierra Club.

"Any proposals that go after the president's climate legacy, or even infringes upon his executive authority, are not likely to be successful," he said.

For his part, McConnell has said since his re-election that his top priority for Kentucky will be to rein in EPA.

Budgets can be adopted with a simple majority of 51 votes, and McConnell told reporters in a press conference that Republicans will go after the EPA "through the spending process, which I think is our best tool in our governmental system."

The idea is to "use the power of the purse to try to push back against this overactive bureaucracy," he said.

Bill Bissett, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, said that by elevating the debate on coal and climate, McConnell can help keep those issues in the public eye during next year's race for governor in Kentucky, and again in the 2016 presidential contest.

"The next two races are going to be a lot about how we are going to power Kentucky, and how we are going to power the world," Bissett said.

But the Sierra Club's Pierce said Republicans will pay a big price in future elections if they try to gut environmental protections.

"If they overreach, it will ultimately backfire," she said. "That's what's going to keep a lot of these bad ideas in check."

Reach reporter James Bruggers at (502) 582-4645 or on Twitter @jbruggers.