Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of Title United States Code, of the Rule Submitted By the Environmental Protection Agency Relating to ``Emissions Budget and Allowance Allocations for Indiana Under the Revised Cross-State Air Pollution

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I am here, I guess, to offer a eulogy for the supposed Republican principle that government should not be used to pick winners and losers. It turns out that principle is soluble in money.

Months before the 2024 election, President Trump offered big oil and coal cronies a super deal: They give him $1 billion to take the White House, of which he got at least several hundred million, and he would pay them back bigly; he would use government to make them winners and clean energy losers. So he has bent over backwards to make Big Oil, big polluters happy.

His efforts to prop up his coal industry donors have been particularly flagrant. Coal as an energy source is a dirty and dying industry. Coal is expensive to mine, coal-fired powerplants are expensive to operate, and coal-powered electricity is expensive to buy. So besides being toxic to mine and burn, coal is a bad financial play-- at least in the real, open market that Republicans claim to want to honor.

So to pick his winners and punish his losers, Trump issued a series of Executive orders directing State and Federal actors to revive the zombie coal industry.

At the beginning of this year, several Indiana utilities had announced plans to retire polluting coal plants and shift to cleaner energy sources. Following Trump's Executive orders and who knows what other private conversations, several of these utilities canceled plans to retire the polluting coal units.

This is a pretty big deal well outside of Indiana because coal plants like these emit hundreds of thousands of tons of pollution each year, including the pollution which forms smog. Exposure to smog is serious. It causes lung disease, it causes cardiovascular problems, and it even causes reproductive issues. It has been documented to cause premature deaths. And it blows into other States. Prevailing winds take the pollution and blow it into other States. In fact, I have argued that there are smokestacks designed specifically to get the pollution out of the home State and land it on the downwind States, like Rhode Island.

Under the cross-State air pollution rule, EPA sets emissions ``budgets'' to protect people in the downwind States from dangerous, smog-forming pollution that comes out of another State and blows across the border from the upwind, coal-fired powerplants. Well, after these Indiana coal plants got their inducement to extend, EPA had to loosen its previously-set emissions budget for Indiana that protected the downwind States in order to allow more smog to spread, because that is what reopening these plants does--it allows more smog to spread.

EPA promulgated this deregulatory rulemaking without a notice and comment process, giving no opportunity to anyone downwind--vulnerable to smog pollution from Indiana--to communicate into the EPA process their concerns.

Well, back in 1996, Congress enacted the Congressional Review Act to give Congress the opportunity to vote on regulations like this. During the Biden administration, the Senate actually conducted 35 rollcall votes in relation to Republican-sponsored Congressional Review Act resolutions of disapproval.

Now the Trump administration is engaged in an effort, at breakneck speed, to pick winners and punish losers, and if doing so requires them to tear down protections of Americans' health, of our safety, of the environment, that is all fine with them.

Congressional Review Act resolutions like this one can help hold the administration to account. I strongly urge a vote upholding our response against this polluting regulation.

142, S.J. Res. 60.

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. If the Senator wishes to speak, I am willing to withdraw my motion to proceed, which actually is not debatable and would cut him off. But I would like to know how much time the Senator would like, and then I would like unanimous consent that we then proceed to the conclusion of Calendar No. 142--and Senator Capito as well.

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. The distinguished chairman of Environment and Public Works would like some time as well?

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I move again to proceed to Calendar No. 142, S.J. Res. 60.
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