CEI Supports McConnell’s Strategy to Protect States Against EPA Power Grab

View the full coalition letter here

The Competitive Enterprise Institute joined Americans for Tax Reform, National Taxpayers Union, and 29 other conservative and free-market organizations in signing a coalition letter in support of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s work with states to contest the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan (CPP). An excerpt of the letter is below:

"Opposition to the CPP is a natural response to a regulation that would further centralize power in Washington. The EPA is asking for state complicity in the CPP because the agency likely does not have the legal authority to unilaterally implement the CPP's proposals. Specifically, the Clean Air Act provides no authority for the EPA to control state laws on renewable generation, electric dispatch policy, or consumer conservation incentives. It is because EPA is desperate to legitimize its most brazen power grab to date that it is pressuring states to submit State Implementation Plans.

"We also agree with you that states are completely within their legal rights to “just say no” and let EPA take sole responsibility for implementing the 111(d) rule. The right of states to keep their fingerprints off what they regard as a misguided or unlawful rule is basic to the very concept of cooperative federalism."