MORGANTOWN — West Virginia’s two U.S. senators and attorney general celebrated on Thursday the failure of a Senate resolution to nullify president Trump’s Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule – his replacement for the Obama Clean Power Plan.
“I voted against S.J. Res. 53 because today’s vote put politics over solutions,” said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.” I never supported the Clean Power Plan because it required U.S. coal power plants to use unproven technologies that were too costly to be practical at the time.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said, “The Obama administration’s so-called ‘Clean Power Plan’ was an unrealistic and strangling regulation that would have been devastating to West Virginia’s energy economy. The ACE Rule is a better alternative that allows states and energy producers to reduce emissions at an achievable pace without cutting back on jobs or economic growth.”
According to the EPA, the ACE rule establishes emissions guidelines for states to use when developing plans to limit carbon dioxide at their coal-fired power plants. States will have three years to submit plans, which is in line with other planning timelines under the Clean Air Act.
The EPA expects ACE, along with additional expected emissions reductions based on long-term industry trends, to see CO2 emissions from the electric sector fall by as much as 35% below 2005 levels in 2030.
It projects that ACE will result in annual net benefits of $120 million to $730 million, including costs, domestic climate benefits, and health co-benefits.
The Congressional Review Act allows both houses of Congress, under a joint resolution, to review and overrule a regulation.
Manchin said, “While I maintain that the Affordable Clean Energy rule is flawed for ruling out carbon capture and utilization technologies for coal plants, a CRA is an overly broad legislative tool that would prevent any subsequent legislation that is substantially the same, whether it is an improvement or not.
“I believe we need to put the partisan gimmicks aside and come together to focus on developing and deploying the technologies vital to solving climate change, from carbon capture and utilization and solar power to energy efficiency and storage technologies,” he said. “The technologies that were unattainable then are within reach now.”
Capito spoke against the resolution on the Senate floor Wednesday night..
“The jewel in the ‘War on Coal’s’ crown was always the Clean Power Plan,” she said. It ran roughshod over utilities’ investments and states’ rights. Electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket, President Obama admitted.
The ACE Rule, which was finalized in June, assures EPA targets are achievable and won’t kill jobs or crush families with higher bills, she said.
She said Thursday that if the resolution had passed, “It would serve as the starting point for a resumption of the War on Coal and a march to the extremist excesses of the Green New Deal, which would have devastated West Virginia and halted the progess we’ve made. West Virginians don’t have to choose between a clean environment and a thriving economy. We demand both; and with the ACE Rule, we can achieve both.”
Attorney General Patrick Morrisey led a 24-state lawsuit to block the Clean Power Plan. The U.S. Supreme Court then put a stay on the CPP. The Trump EPA then repealed it and put ACE in its place.
Morrisey said Thursday, “The U.S. Senate did a great service to our nation by rejecting this radical attack on West Virginia coal jobs. The Senate’s vote repudiates yet another effort to revive the war on coal, which is really a war on West Virginia, family budgets and affordable energy. The ACE rule is common sense and ensures our nation’s unrelenting pursuit of clean energy.”
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