Team Biden Gives EPA Control of Power Plant Regulation

The Biden administration reversed a Trump-era rule and again gave the EPA power over power plant regulation. Congress is nowhere to be found. Team Biden’s stated goal is to destroy the fossil fuel industry.

Background

In late June of last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency cannot put state-level caps on carbon emissions under the 1970 Clean Air Act. Such authority would, in effect, steer states away from coal and toward other types of power sources that emit less carbon. The Court said that, instead, the authority to decide how power is created in the U.S. must come from Congress.

The Bidenistas found a way around it

Following the decision June 2022, the Biden administration planned to use other regulatory tools to achieve similar goals.

A key part of the plan was to restrict further other pollutants that coal-burning power plants emit, such as soot, mercury, and nitrous oxides — a move that also will reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The 2020 decision, the EPA claimed, was based “on a fundamentally flawed interpretation of the Clean Air Act that improperly ignored or undervalued vital health benefits from reducing hazardous air pollution from power plants.”

Experts stated that the SCOTUS decision curtails the authority of the EPA under one provision of the Clean Air Act. Still, it doesn’t curtail all EPA authority or preclude federal, state, or local government action on climate change.

Health, as well as healthcare costs, need to be adequately considered in all levels of government decision-making on air pollution and climate change. There are huge health benefits that can be achieved through timely action.

They granted themselves control over power plants once again

Thus, this week, the White House reversed a Trump-era rule stripping the Environmental Protection Agency of some regulatory oversight over power plants, hailing the reversal as a win for “public health.”

They can use public health to implement any tyrannical rule they want.

The EPA said in a press release on Friday that the “Biden-Harris administration” had “reverse[d] a rule issued by the previous administration in May 2020,” which “undermined the legal basis” for the EPA’s rulemaking authority regarding “​​mercury, acid gases, and other harmful pollutants.”

“For years, Mercury and Air Toxics Standards have protected the health of American communities nationwide, especially children, low-income communities, and communities of color who often and unjustly live near power plants,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in the announcement.

“This finding ensures the continuation of these critical, life-saving protections while advancing President Biden’s commitment to making science-based decisions and protecting the health and well-being of all people and all communities.”

These people are dictators, and no amount of court cases will stop them from destroying our fossil fuel industry even though there is nothing to replace it.

They ignore the states again

The federal government is rejecting the Arkansas state plan. They don’t care about the law. They only care about finding a way around it. The federal government is becoming way too big and powerful and far more dangerous.

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