Ratepayer Protection Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. LOUDERMILK. Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the Ratepayer Protection Act, which is a critical piece of legislation that helps protect our Nation's consumers and businesses from skyrocketing electricity costs.

Last year, the EPA proposed a new set of regulations on existing power plants which will dramatically effect our economy if implemented.

The Obama administration has been doing its best to convince the American people that these new standards would achieve great progress for our Nation, calling the proposal the clean power plan. Despite the illusions of good intentions, the devil is in the details of this proposed rule.

What the administration does not want us to know is that these standards would wreak havoc on our economy and inflict enormous costs on the American consumer. According to the National Economic Research Associates, these regulations would increase electricity prices in my home State of Georgia by 12 percent.

While this would be a problem for any State, it is especially alarming for me, given that Georgia already has the tenth highest average electricity bill in the Nation.

Mr. Chairman, right now, the temperature in my State is 95 degrees. My constituents depend on affordable electricity to stay cool all summer long, and the administration's assault on our Nation's power plants is totally unacceptable.

What is more, the average American household already spends about $15,000 a year to comply with Federal regulations. It has been radical proposals like these which have caused our economy to stagnate throughout this administration.

Even the EPA admits that the rule will cost our economy more than $7 billion a year by the year 2030. Washington bureaucrats may be able to afford this assault on our economy, but my constituents cannot.

The EPA also promotes these regulations with a promise that they would cut 30 percent of carbon pollution by the year 2030. The inconvenient truth is my State has already reduced its carbon emissions by 33 percent from 2005 to 2012.

Why is the administration pursuing these unrealistic regulations when Georgia and other States have already dramatically reduced their pollution levels?

The bill we are considering today, H.R. 2042, would halt the rule's compliance deadlines until litigation on the rule has been completed. This bill would also allow the Governor of any State to opt out of the rule's requirements if their State's electricity rates would increase significantly, as they would in my home State.

This commonsense piece of legislation would help to bring the U.S. environmental policy back into the real world and allow us to remain economically competitive.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

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