Alexander Votes to Support Tennessee Outdoors, Put Limits on EPA Overregulation
Press Release
U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today voted in the Senate Appropriations Committee in favor of the fiscal year 2016 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, saying it supports Tennessee priorities and "puts limits on the EPA's efforts to add to the big, wet blanket of burdensome regulations."
"Governing is about setting priorities, and I voted for this legislation because it supports Tennessee's great outdoors and restrains the Environmental Protection Agency's overregulation," Alexander said. "This legislation includes funding that for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Cherokee National Forest, the Dale Hollow and Erwin National Fish Hatcheries, as well as conservation programs that support projects across the state."
Alexander continued, "I also voted for this legislation because it pushes back against the EPA's efforts to add to the big, wet blanket of burdensome regulations that mean higher costs for Tennessee families, farmers and businesses. This legislation limits the administration's costly and unfair proposed Clean Power Plan to regulate carbon emissions, prevents the EPA from regulating mud puddles in farmers' fields, and proposes to give communities more time to meet the ozone standard that is already in place before EPA lowers the ozone standard again."
Under the proposed Clean Power Plan, only 6 percent of the energy generated by existing nuclear plants would count toward setting EPA's carbon reduction goals. Wind and solar, meanwhile, would receive 100 percent credit from the EPA. The EPA also assumes that nuclear plants that are under construction, including Watts Bar 2 in Tennessee, as already operating at 90 percent capacity, even though they are not yet open and will not begin producing electricity until the end of 2015 at the earliest.
Alexander said, "60 percent of our country's carbon-free, emission-free electricity comes from nuclear power. Yet, when we're developing a clean air plan in Tennessee under the Obama administration's proposed Clean Power Plan, we don't get credit for investing in nuclear power."
Source