(ARLINGTON, VA) — The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) today expressed full support and appreciation for Senate passage of resolutions to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) sponsored a resolution under the Congressional Review Act to halt EPA carbon dioxide emissions standards for new power plants. Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) authored a resolution to overturn standards for existing plants.
NRECA also commended the House Energy and Commerce Committee for approving similar resolutions this morning and urged swift action by the full House.
“These votes show that a bipartisan majority in Congress believes the EPA’s Clean Power Plan goes far beyond what the Clean Air Act allows it to do,” said Debbie Wing, NRECA director of media relations. “America’s Electric Cooperatives strongly agree. The Clean Power Plan will lead to higher electricity prices, force the premature shutdown of power plants, and threaten electric reliability. Any way you look at it, it’s a bad deal for rural America.”
Last month, 39 generation and transmission cooperatives joined NRECA in petitioning the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C, Circuit to review the Clean Power Plan.
The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national service organization that represents the nation’s more than 900 private, not-for-profit, consumer-owned electric cooperatives, which provide service to 42 million people in 47 states.