Letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Robert Perciasepe - Climate Change Agenda for Obama's Second Term

Letter

Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee are requesting that EPA provide further information regarding the President's climate change agenda for his second term. Members today wrote to EPA Acting Administrator Robert Perciasepe expressing concern over the impacts of EPA's recently issued greenhouse gas regulations and the agency's plans for additional rules that will raise energy prices and impede job creation and economic growth.

Committee leaders questioned the President's priorities as the nation confronts a stalled economy and continues struggling to recover from the Great Recession. They wrote, "As you are aware, unprecedented economic challenges threaten current and future generations of Americans. Our nation faces prolonged high unemployment, anemic economic growth, and a national debt rapidly approaching $17 trillion. The U.S. Senate has not passed a budget in four years, and the President has not yet submitted a fiscal year 2014 budget proposal to Congress. As these pressing fiscal, economic, and employment risks confront American families and businesses, the President announced in his Inaugural and the State of the Union speeches that climate change is one of his top priorities and that he intends to take action in his second term."

The Energy and Commerce Committee has a long history of reviewing climate change policies. The letter continues, "Over the past three Congresses, our Committee developed a sizable Congressional record regarding climate change, including dozens of hearings and testimony from hundreds of witnesses. Our consideration of the impacts of climate policies has informed our view that raising the price of energy would hurt households and businesses with no perceptible impacts on global greenhouse gas emissions, weather or climate conditions. …

"Notwithstanding the importance of encouraging economic recovery and job growth, EPA has during the President's first term issued thousands of pages of greenhouse gas regulations that impose additional costs on all sectors of the economy. We are concerned about the impacts of these regulations and also of new additional regulations that EPA intends to issue that will drive up energy prices for Americans, further discouraging economic growth and job creation."

The full letter is available in a PDF link below:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/sites/republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/files/letters/20130314EPA.pdf