Rep. Kelly Reacts to Supreme Court Ruling on EPA Regulations

Rep. Kelly is lead sponsor of Coal Country Protection Act to stop job-killing EPA overreach

WASHINGTON — U.S. Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) issued the following statement today regarding this morning’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to partially strike down a set of greenhouse gas regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). According to USA Today, the court ruling stops the Obama administration “from requiring permits for greenhouse gas emissions from new or modified industrial facilities” and determined that the EPA “exceeded its authority by changing the emissions threshold for greenhouse gases in the Clean Air Act to regulate more stationary sources.” According to Fox News, the decision “does not affect recent and highly controversial EPA proposals to set the first-ever national standards for new and existing power plants.”

“While not perfect, today’s ruling must be understood as a victory for limited government and our system of checks and balances. While the high court left alone the EPA’s most recent attack on our economy, the justices still made it clear that this administration cannot re-write existing laws to satisfy its political agenda. This is good news for working Americans and the thousands of jobs at risk of being of trampled by EPA overreach. While President Obama’s reckless war on American energy will continue beyond today, so must the necessary fight to stop it.”

Excerpt from the majority opinion: “We conclude that EPA’s rewriting of the statutory thresholds was impermissible and therefore could not validate the Agency’s interpretation of the triggering provisions. An agency has no power to ‘tailor’ legislation to bureaucratic policy goals by rewriting unambiguous statutory terms. Agencies exercise discretion only in the interstices created by statutory silence or ambiguity; they must always ‘give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.’ It is hard to imagine a statutory term less ambiguous than the precise numerical thresholds at which the Act requires PSD and Title V permitting. When EPA replaced those numbers with others of its own choosing, it went well beyond the ‘bounds of its statutory authority.’” (Pg. 21)

NOTE: Rep. Kelly is the lead sponsor of H.R. 4808, the Coal Country Protection Act, a new bipartisan bill which would stop any new regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on America’s power plants until the following four outcomes are guaranteed: 1.) No job losses; 2.) No loss in GDP/economic growth; 3.) No higher electric rates; 4). No interruption in energy delivery. The Senate companion to this bill is being sponsored by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

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