EPA Regulations Will Hurt America

Statement

Recently, I joined a bipartisan group of senators in an effort to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act. Our goal was to keep an agency of unelected bureaucrats from making major policy decisions which rightly belong in a legislature that is accountable to the American people.

What is carbon dioxide? Also known as CO2, it is a part of everyday life. When the earliest human being took their first breath, CO2 was discharged. Today, carbon dioxide sources can be found in normal activities at schools, hospitals and farms and ranches to name just a few. The EPA is seeking to regulate each of them. This new takeover would see the federal government reach into our economy and most other parts of our daily lives.

Just prior to the vote on our EPA resolution, I gave a speech on the Senate floor further detailing how the EPA's intentions threatened the Constitution. And I outlined its tremendous costs to the American people including the export of American jobs overseas.

On that day, our efforts were unsuccessful and the resolution was defeated 47-53. Fortunately, the debate over EPA's regulation of carbon dioxide is just beginning and there is still time for Congress to act before regulations are imposed. If we do not, as I stated in an editorial sent to newspapers across Idaho, I predict many in Congress will have a difficult time explaining why they supported a bureaucratic agency over American families and jobs.

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