Today, U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, made the following statement regarding an updated Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that shows a higher number of coal fired power plants will be closing and fewer will be retrofitted than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) predicted. The report suggests the closures are due to EPA's regulations, such as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS).
"The EPA's recently proposed mandates targeting existing power plants carbon dioxide emissions are all pain and no gain. The GAO report really highlights how the Obama Administration's policies, as part of its Climate Action Plan, are threatening affordable electricity and American families," Vitter said. "As EPA attempts to disguise the devastating effects their proposed rule for existing power plants would have on our domestic energy industry and economy, this GAO report clearly exposes the upcoming danger."
Vitter has suggested that EPA has not factored growth in electricity demand as a result of a growing economy into their calculations under the existing source proposal, instead hoping for demand destruction, and has highlighted the EPA's track record of regulatory overreach.
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