Republican Virginia Rep. Bob Good requested that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provide information about the true costs of some of the Biden-Harris administration’s most aggressive climate policies on Friday.
Good wrote to CBO Director Phillip Swagel to demand that his office examine the fiscal impacts of five federal actions, including the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) major regulations on power plants and tailpipe emissions from heavy-duty vehicles. In his letter, Good stated that the administration’s “unprecedented overreach” in its environmental rulemaking has hurt consumers, businesses, national security and the economy writ large, and that information about the impacts of these policies can equip lawmakers to ensure that federal policymaking decreases the burden on taxpayers. (RELATED: EPA Chief Says ‘We Don’t Have An EV Mandate’ Months After Finalizing Rules That Mandate More EVs)
Letter To CBO On Energy Rulemakings by Nick Pope on Scribd
“The effects of the Biden-Harris energy policies have been disastrous for consumers, businesses, our economy, and even our national security. In fact, the financial impact on consumers is evident with nearly 33 percent of Americans reporting that they have to forgo paying medical or grocery bills to pay their energy bills,” Good wrote. “As Members of Congress, it is our goal to ensure that policies enacted by the Federal Government help alleviate regulatory and financial burden on taxpayers and decrease government intrusion into the private sector. Our concern is that the unprecedented overreach of the past 4 years will continue, and the American people will continue to suffer.”
The EPA’s power plant rules will likely force the premature retirement of coal-fired power plants and disincentivize investment in new natural gas-fired facilities, which could threaten grid reliability in the longer term given that the administration is simultaneously pursuing a host of policies that will drive up electricity demand, as power grid experts previously explained to the Daily Caller News Foundation. The agency’s stringent emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles, meanwhile, have been slammed by industry stakeholders as “entirely unachievable” because they effectively mandate the broad adoption of unproven technologies and pose risks to supply chains.
Beyond those two rules, Good also requested that CBO analyze the EPA’s update to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for particulate matter, which manufacturing interests and other critics have warned could essentially restrict industrial activity and deny states the ability to develop their own economies. Good also inquired about the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) reforms to the oil and gas leasing process that drive up the cost of development, as well as the Department of Energy’s (DOE) rule that bans the use of natural gas in new federal buildings built after 2030.
Good requested that CBO returns its fiscal assessments of the policies by no later than Oct. 13.
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