Regulatory Reform

ALEC Weighs in on Proposed “Clean Power Plan”

Earlier today, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) submitted a public comment expressing significant concerns with EPA’s plan to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing stationary sources under §111(d) of the federal Clean Air Act. On June 2, 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published its proposed Clean Power Plan that would ultimately reduce by 2030 carbon dioxide emissions from existing fossil fuel-fired power plants by 30 percent from 2005 levels.

Earlier this year, ALEC member legislators considered and passed the Resolution Concerning EPA’s Proposed Guidelines for Existing Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Plants. This resolution came after the Resolution Concerning EPA Proposed Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards for New and Existing Fossil-Fueled Power Plants adopted the year before in 2013. Three ALEC member legislators also recently wrote a white paper expressing some of their concerns with the proposed rule as written. The paper also highlights some of the efforts being made by state policymakers in response to the proposed rule.

To read the comments submitted by ALEC, please click here.

To read more about the effects of this proposed regulation—as well as other EPA regulations—on state sovereignty, please read the ALEC publication titled The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Assault on State Sovereignty.


In Depth: Regulatory Reform

In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson said that “the sum of good government” was one “which shall restrain men from injuring one another” and “shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry.” Sadly, governments – both federal and state – have ignored this axiom and…

+ Regulatory Reform In Depth