Daines Welcomes Montana PSC Commissioner Kavulla to Hearing on EPA Emissions Regulations

Representative Steve Daines today welcomed Montana Public Service Commissioner Travis Kavulla to Washington, D.C., where Kavulla testified about the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposed carbon emissions rules and their potential consequences for Montana at a House subcommittee hearing.

The hearing, entitled "State Perspectives: Questions Concerning EPA's Proposed Clean Power Plan" was held by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce's Energy and Power Subcommittee.

In addition to representing approximately 200,000 Montanans on the Public Service Commission, Kavulla is the co-chairman of the Northern Tier Transmission Group's steering committee and a former Director of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, where he currently serves on the Member Advisory Committee.

"The EPA's rapidly approaching October comment deadline must be extended to provide sufficient time for reliability analysis to be conducted," Kavulla wrote in a summary of his testimony. "Many parts of the rule must be reworked considerably if state goals are to be founded on a realistic assessment of what is achievable in a state."

"EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has ignored requests to visit Montana and hear from citizens who will be directly affected by the EPA's top-down, one-size-fits-all regulations on Montana's coal-fired power plants and coal industry," Daines said. "That's why it's important that Montanans' voices are heard in Washington, D.C. I appreciate Travis taking time to share his expertise about the EPA's inefficient and ineffective rules that will kill jobs and increase energy prices for Montana families and businesses."

In July, Daines invited EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to Montana to discuss the proposed regulations, which seek to cut power plant emissions by 30 percent by 2030. The rules, a part of President Obama's war on coal, would diminish coal's role in energy production, force higher energy costs upon American families and cost good-paying Montana jobs.

Daines, a member of the Congressional Coal Caucus, has been standing with Montana families at the forefront of the fight against the Obama administration's war on coal.

He introduced the Protecting Coal Jobs and Affordable Energy Act, which would stop the EPA's regulations from taking effect unless the government can certify that they would not kill jobs, increase electricity rates or harm the nation's gross domestic product.

Daines is a co-sponsor of H.R. 3826, the Electricity Security and Affordability Act, which would provide that Congress, not the EPA, set the effective date for any carbon dioxide regulations developed by the EPA. It passed the House earlier this year but has been blocked from coming to the Senate floor for a vote.

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