In The News
Tim Cama
The Senate will vote as early as this week to block President Obama’s climate change rules for power plants.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Monday that the resolutions, one of which he sponsors, were placed on the Senate floor calendar, lining up a vote soon.
The resolutions are written under the Congressional Review Act, a rarely-used law that gives Congress a streamlined process for blocking regulations.The legislation only requires a simple majority vote, which would fulfill one of McConnell’s top priorities and promised to his constituents: to block the rules, which are due to hit the coal industry especially hard.
“These regulations make it clearer than ever that the president and his administration have gone too far, and that Congress should act to stop this regulatory assault,” McConnell said in a statement.
“Here’s what is lost in this administration’s crusade for ideological purity: the livelihoods of our coal miners and their families. Folks who haven’t done anything to deserve a ‘war’ being declared upon them.”
The regulations were made final in August by the Environmental Protection Agency, and are the main pillar of Obama’s second-term push against climate change.
The most contentious rule, the Clean Power Plan, mandates a 32 percent cut in the carbon dioxide output of the existing power plant sector. The second rule, which has a different resolution in the Senate, sets hard limits for the carbon output of new coal- and gas-fired power plants.
‘The administration bypassed Congress entirely when it developed this rule, and these resolutions of disapproval will give senators an opportunity to approve or disapprove of these far-reaching regulations,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who sponsored the resolution for the existing-plant rule, said in a statement.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) is also sponsoring Capito’s legislation, and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is sponsoring McConnell’s.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is planning this week to vote on the House versions of both resolutions.
Obama would need to sign the resolutions for them to take effect, which he has made clear he would not do.
States and energy industry interests have sued the Obama administration in federal court to stop both regulations.
John Irish
PARIS, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Any global climate change deal reached in Paris next month will be legally binding and have a concrete impact, France's foreign minister said on Thursday, reacting to U.S. comments that questioned the status of the accord.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was quoted as telling Wednesday's Financial Times that December's agreement was "definitively not going to be a treaty".
His French counterpart Laurent Fabius said on Thursday that, unlike previous negotiations, the Paris talks were not just "hot air" and Kerry was perhaps "confused".
"Jurists will discuss the legal nature of an accord on whether it should be termed as a treaty or an international agreement," Fabius told reporters.
"But the fact that a certain number of dispositions should have a practical effect and be legally binding is obvious so let's not confuse things, which is perhaps what Mr Kerry has done," said Fabius, who spoke to Kerry on Wednesday.
Senior officials from almost 200 nations will meet from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11 to try to rise above the collapse of the last global climate-change conference in Copenhagen in 2009 and nail down a final agreement to limit global warming.
However, while the European Union and developing nations are urging an internationally binding text, others, such as the United States want only national enforcement.
Kerry said the text would not set "legally binding reduction targets like Kyoto".
The Kyoto protocol, signed in 1997, imposed on all signatory countries an obligation to cut their carbon dioxide emissions by at least 5 percent in the period 2008-2012 versus 1990, a treaty that Washington refused to sign up to.
"This is not a political discussion. This is a real accord with facts," Fabius said. He acknowledged, however, that the U.S. had to take account of domestic political sensitivities. (Reporting by John Irish; editing by John Stonestreet)
Financial Times: Paris climate deal will not be a legally binding treaty
Financial Times
Wednesday November 11, 2015
Demetri Sevastopulo and Pilita Clark
John Kerry, US secretary of state, has warned that December’s Paris climate change talks will not deliver a “treaty” that legally requires countries to cut their carbon emissions, exposing international divisions over how to enforce a deal.
The EU and other countries have long argued that the accord due to be reached next month should be an “international treaty” with legally binding measures to cut emissions. But in an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Kerry insisted the agreement was “definitively not going to be a treaty”.
He said it would contain measures that would drive a “significant amount of investment” towards a low-carbon global economy. But he stressed there were “not going to be legally binding reduction targets like Kyoto”, a reference to the 1997 Kyoto protocol, a UN climate treaty that had targets for cutting emissions that countries ratifying it were legally obliged to meet.
Delegates from 195 countries are due to finalise a new global climate accord in Paris that will replace the Kyoto treaty, which failed to stop emissions rising. The US signed but failed to ratify that treaty, largely because it did not cover China, now the world’s largest carbon polluter.
The Paris deal is supposed to cover all countries, but Mr Kerry’s comments underline the differences between the US and other nations over how to ensure it is robust enough to shift billions of dollars of investment away from fossil fuels and towards greener energy sources.
A European Commission spokeswoman on Wednesday said the commission and many nations “would like the Paris agreement to be in the form of a protocol or a treaty” which would represent “the strongest expression of political will and also for the future it provides predictability and durability”.
Privately, EU officials acknowledge the Obama administration is eager for a deal in Paris, but not one containing new, legally binding measures because these would strengthen arguments that the agreement needs approval from a hostile US Senate, which must ratify all treaties.
To that end, negotiators are trying to craft an agreement that satisfies all sides, possibly by making its rules and procedures legally binding, but not the actual targets in many of the climate pledges that nearly 160 countries have made this year for the deal.
The issue is particularly sensitive ahead of the 2016 presidential election given the chasm between the Democrats and Republicans running for the White House over the need and urgency to tackle climate change
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/79daf872-8894-11e5-90de-f44762bf9896.html#axzz3rHn2Fa6a
Tulsa World editorial: Inhofe leads battle against EPA's Waters of the United States rules
Saturday November 7, 2015
Tulsa World Editorial Board
With the leadership of Sen. Jim Inhofe — and despite the obstruction of the Obama administration and its allies in the Senate — Congress might be moving to block overreaching EPA water regulations.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s Waters of the United States rules would extend the agency’s oversight of water quality without legislative authority all the way to farmers’ stock ponds with a predictable impact on the price of food.
Several states, including Oklahoma, are challenging the so-called WOTUS rules, and federal courts have blocked implementation. The issue could be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, unless Congress acts first.
Earlier this week, a measure that would stop WOTUS and instruct EPA to rewrite the regulations within clear boundaries failed on a procedural vote in the U.S. Senate. Inhofe was the floor manager of the proposal, which received 57 votes. Sixty were needed to move ahead.
Eleven Democratic senators who voted with the Obama administration later sent a letter to the EPA, urging it to pull back on the rules, evidence that some people would like to have their cake and not vote for it too.
Another measure was subsequently discharged from Inhofe’s Environment and Public Works Committee. It would overturn the EPA rules and block any new rules that are substantially the same. Under Senate rules, the proposal only needed 51 votes in the Senate and it got 53 on Wednesday.
It’s still far from a done deal. The House needs to pass the measure and then both the Senate and the House probably would have to pass it again with a supermajority, if Obama carries through on a promised veto.
Nobody involved in the debate — not Inhofe or the farmers — is in favor of water pollution. But as was argued in court, the EPA rules are a substantial extension of EPA regulation without congressional authorization. It looks increasingly clear that WOTUS doesn’t have majority support on Capitol Hill, and that might eventually lead to the demise of rules that never should have been created.
Federal regulation of farm ponds is a policy question that should be decided by the legislative branch of government, not bureaucratic fiat.
We hope Inhofe can muster the support needed to correct the EPA’s course and return some balance to Washington.
Annie Snider
The Senate stands poised to approve a resolution to kill the Obama administration's contentious water rule today after opponents' preferred measure to deal with the issue failed yesterday.
The resolution, a disapproval of the Waters of the U.S. rule, overcame a key procedural vote late yesterday afternoon thanks to expedited procedures under the Congressional Review Act that allow such a measure to be taken up with the support of only a simple majority.
Senators voted 55-43 to take up the measure, with three Democrats -- Sens. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia -- supporting and one Republican -- Susan Collins of Maine -- opposing.
The resolution is all but certain to pass later today but is headed only for a swift veto from President Obama, whose advisers issued another statement of administration policyyesterday afternoon.
The CRA resolution wasn't the first choice of senators opposing the water rule. They had preferred to pass S. 1140, a measure from Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Donnelly that would have forced the current rule to be scrapped and would have set criteria for how a new rule should be developed and what streams and wetlands should and shouldn't qualify for Clean Water Act protection under it.
That measure was filibustered by Democrats yesterday.
The vote hung on farm state Democrats who have been getting an earful from their agricultural constituents about the rule (E&ENews PM, Nov. 3).
That 11 of those Democrats opted to send a letter to the leaders of U.S. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers warning the agencies to do a better job of addressing farmers' concerns rather than allow the Barrasso measure to move forward left Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) fuming.
In a statement yesterday evening, Inhofe said that the open amendment process Republican leadership had promised on S. 1140 would have given them ample opportunity to provide that direction legislatively rather than in a letter to the agencies' leaders.
"It is extremely disappointing that after failing to do their job to provide legislative clarity to the EPA on the regulation of our nation's waters, Senate Democrats are writing a letter to the administration saying they reserve the right to do their jobs, simply at a later time," he said.
"Proceeding to S. 1140 provided all Senators, including the 11 Senators authoring this letter, the opportunity to amend S. 1140 in an open process," Inhofe said. "They then could have given EPA necessary direction on how to implement the Clean Water Act and the Waters of the U.S. rule. Legislating provides the legal clarity for the EPA to implement rules."
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has put the water rule on hold but still has to decide whether it has jurisdiction over the stack of court challenges. If it sends the lawsuits to district court, the nationwide stay could be lifted.
Your Sewers and Streets Could Be Waters of the United States
Municipal Water Leader: Water and Power Report
Monday November 2, 2015
Jim Inhofe
Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) published a new definition of waters of the United States that determines the extent of federal control over land and water (the WOTUS rule). I have been clear that I believe that this rule unlawfully encroaches on the rights of states, municipalities, farmers, and other private citizens.
This concern is shared by 31 states, which have sued EPA to overturn the rule, and by Judge Erickson of the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota, who stayed the rule in 13 states because he found that the rule is causing irreparable harm and that the state plaintiffs are likely to win their lawsuit. On October 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit joined this chorus of disapproval by issuing an order that stays the rule in all 50 states, finding that the plaintiffs had demonstrated a “substantial possibility of success on the merits” of their claim that the rule is unlawful.
This concern also is shared by many local governments. The U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, and the National Association of Regional Councils all have told me that they have significant concerns about the rule and believe that it will increase the types of public infrastructure considered jurisdictional under the Clean Water Act.
The concerns of state and local governments are well founded. A primary example is the treatment of ditches and other water management systems in the final rule. EPA claims that it has exempted ditches, storm water control features, and wastewater recycling structures from regulation; however, the agency fails to mention that the exemptions do not apply if a ditch or other water management system was a former stream or if the system was not built on “dry land.” With this interpretation, EPA and the Corps are claiming the authority to regulate not only current streams and wetlands but also locations where streams and wetlands may have existed in the past.
Many of our communities were developed long ago, and in earlier times, it was common practice to construct city sewer and storm water systems and even streets in former streams and marshes. As a result, communities must now worry about the status of their Your Sewers and Streets Could Be Waters of the United States municipal infrastructure.
Washington, DC, provides many examples. In the 18th and 19th centuries, a stream named Tiber Creek emptied into a marsh located in what is now the National Mall. Tiber Creek originated in northeast Washington. It was navigable for small boats up to what is now Florida Avenue. By 1880, Tiber Creek was paved over and turned into an underground sewer that is now known as the Flagler Place Trunk Sewer, a combined sewer that discharges into the Anacostia River.
In 1815, part of Tiber Creek became the Washington Canal. The canal connected the Potomac River to the Anacostia River. Eventually, the Washington Canal was filled in to become Constitution Avenue.
Washington, DC, was full of other waterways as well. There was a lake or marsh at 11th and Harvard Streets. Union Station was built on top of a stream, and another stream that formerly ran through Judiciary Square and Indiana Avenue was piped in 1821 and then used to build a reservoir in 1828.
24 Municipal Water Leader According to the preamble to the WOTUS rule, the agencies will rely on historic records to regulate the “unpermitted alteration of streams” because the physical characteristics of a stream may no longer exist. A summer intern for my committee easily found such historic records for DC, and similar records are likely available for many communities. However, what the final rule fails to admit is that these so-called “unpermitted alterations” occurred long before any permits were required.
What should communities do? Must they stop using their sewers and storm water systems? Do they need a permit to maintain them? Apparently, not even the Corps has the answers. Among the “USACE Implementation Challenges” identified in an April 24 memorandum prepared by the Chief of the Corps’ Regulatory Program is how to determine whether a ditch is a “relocated tributary.” Among the questions asked are, “How far back in history does a regulator need to go? If it can’t be determined definitively, who bears the burden of proof?”
In August, I sent a letter to Jo Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary of the Army, and Ken Kopocis, deputy assistant administrator in the EPA’s Office of Water, asking them about the status of former waters. I have not received a response.
If the stay of the rule is lifted, communities around the country will face enormous legal uncertainty. Under the WOTUS rule, a regulated tributary includes water that flows through pipes and waste treatment systems. If pipes were built in the location of a former stream, then these sewers may be regulated waters of the United States and cannot be used to protect public health and welfare.
Even if EPA decides not to sue, communities remain vulnerable to citizen suits. Under the final rule, a litigant could try to force a city to spend its limited resources to build an entirely new sewer system by asking a court to declare that the city’s sewers are waters of the United States.
We all want to protect human health and the environment. Proper management of wastewater and storm water is part of that protection. Wasting scarce municipal resources for no environmental benefit is not. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, I have been shining a light on the flaws of this ill-conceived rule through oversight, and I have been working to advance legislation to give our communities the protection and certainty they need.
Sen. Jim Inhofe
For the past two decades, I have been on the forefront of Congress soundly rejecting attempts by White House administrations to enact cap-and-trade legislation in the name of global warming.
While media campaigns, and the money behind them, grow to label people like me “skeptics,” the public polling on global warming continues to drop to the least of Americans’ concerns. Now, as President Obama works to finalize his legacy on climate change, it’s clear why the American public still has not bought into the alarmism being used to sell his agenda.
In 2009, the international community was rocked by Climategate, where the United Nation’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was the leading culprit. It was described by the UK Telegraph as the “worst scientific scandal of our generation,” and rightfully so. Climate scientists were caught red-handed manipulating data so it supported their global warming objectives.
Yet this is the institution that President Obama and his Environmental Protection Agency rely upon for climate science and are working hand in hand to establish an international climate agreement later this year. This administration is working to sell off hard-fought American autonomy to a group of international extremists that has, at times, been very candid about what it hopes to achieve through international climate negations, and it has nothing to do with “saving the environment.” Consider this:
French President Jacques Chirac, when discussing the Kyoto Protocol, described it as the “first component of authentic global governance.”
Margo Wallstrom, former EU minister, stated international agreements are about the economy and “leveling the playing field for big business worldwide.”
Most recently, Christina Figueres, the UN’s top climate official, when talking about the Paris climate conference, said, “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”
These statements are fundamentally un-American. And it’s no wonder the president is using deliberately tricky, legal maneuvering to prevent the U.S. Senate and the voice of the American people from having a say in his reckless and dangerous climate agenda.
He won’t call the end-of-the-year international climate agreement a treaty because he wants to deny the U.S. Senate’s constitutionally delegated “advice and consent” role. On the domestic front, he is attempting to mandate multibillion-dollar carbon controls, the so-called Clean Power Plan, through regulatory fiat, despite the fact that the U.S. Congress consistently rejected such an economically disastrous approach since 1997.
The president uses eloquent words when he talks about tackling this generation’s “greatest challenge,” yet the sincerity of his efforts ends when he steps off the stage. In fact, his EPA failed to even measure how global emissions would be impacted by his core domestic climate policy that was finalized this past August. But expert outside analyses found that it would only reduce global emissions by less than a .1 percent.
The president’s own constitutional law professor at Harvard, when responding to the president’s domestic policy, stated that “burning the Constitution of the United States should not be a part of our energy policy.” A former Sierra Club General Counsel recently lamented that the president’s plan is simply unworkable.
Yet none of this will stop President Obama and his alarmist allies from using the same old arguments to scare the American public. In 2008, Al Gore said the north polar ice cap would be “ice-free” by 2013. Today, the ice cap is still intact. There is also growing discrepancy between climate model predictions and actual observations; climate alarmists simply failed to predict the recent 18-year warming hiatus.
In a brief moment of humility, even the IPCC admitted in a 2013 report that “almost all historical simulations do not reproduce the observed recent warming hiatus” and further explained that the source of such a discrepancy could be caused by their limited understanding of how the climate actually works.
The most obvious truth is that global warming science is not settled. Science, by its very nature, is never settled. Thomas Burke, the president’s own acting deputy assistant administrator and science adviser at the EPA, agrees. During a recent U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing, he stated that the science on global warming “continues to evolve constantly.”
Let me be clear: This country was founded by many who were skeptical of government gaining too much control over society. Americans should not run from being called “skeptics,” especially within the realm of global warming policies that are predicated more on fear than facts.
It’s the president and his wealthy climate alarmist allies who are asking Americans to sacrifice their autonomy and money while propping up crony global warming capitalists who profit more off of political patrons than actual customers. I think a good starting point is to simply ask, why?
Tim Benson
In what has been a rough couple of months for the Obama administration on the regulatory front, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has issued a temporary nationwide injunction halting the controversial new Waters of the United States rule (WOTUS) of the Clean Water Act. The U.S. District Court in North Dakota had already issued a preliminary injunction against the rule in late August, but the Obama administration claimed the injunction applied only to the 13 states bringing suit. The nationwide injunction is a significant setback for Obama and his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The WOTUS rule, which was to be jointly administered and enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was presented as a clarification of the federal government’s regulatory authority under the Clean Water Act by defining what exactly constitutes “the waters of the United States.”
In reality, the language of the EPA rule is so intentionally vague this “clarification” could grant Washington, DC jurisdiction over any body of water anywhere in the nation. WOTUS was meant to apply to any water or wetland deemed to have a “significant nexus” to any navigable waterway, with the significant nexus, as described by a Wall Street Journal editorial, so widely interpreted as to include “any creek, pond or prairie pothole” and “any land within a 100-year floodplain and 1,500 feet of the high water mark or, alternatively, within the 100-year floodplain and 4,000 feet of waters within their claimed jurisdiction.” Essentially, the WOTUS rule would put EPA in charge of every piece of land occasionally containing any amount of concentrated water, practically down to the puddle.WOTUS would constitute a massive expansion of federal power and a usurpation of states’ authority, representing a major threat to property rights and private enterprise. Property owners, farmers, and business owners with any property fitting this spectacularly expansive definition of “waters” could face mounds of new, onerous restrictions, red tape, or costs before being allowed to alter their land in even the smallest way.
Criticism of WOTUS has been broad and far-reaching. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, American Farm Bureau Federation, and Dairy Farmers of America have all raised concerns. H. Sterling Burnett, managing editor of The Heartland Institute’sEnvironment & Climate News, says the voluminous number of people and organizations who have “criticized EPA’s plan as overreach in public statements or congressional and administrative testimony” includes “pesticide manufacturers, mining companies, home builders, governors, local governments, water utilities, flood control districts, the timber industry, railroads, real estate developers, golf course operators, food and beverage companies, more than 40 energy companies, and two dozen electric power companies.”
Although the nationwide injunction is a victory for businesses, property owners, and the states, it is only a temporary victory. The injunction remains binding only during the litigation over the rule’s constitutionality. If the rule is upheld, enforcement would begin immediately.
This rule raises some interesting constitutional questions, and the Sixth Circuit has stated of WOTUS, “the rulemaking process by which the distance limitations were adopted is facially suspect,” but concerned members of Congress should be wary of trusting the judicial branch to step in and solve their problems for them. Instead of waiting, wishing, and hoping, Congress should be proactive and put forward legislation to rein in EPA.
The James Madison Institute recommends four ways Congress could take action to block WOTUS implementation: an appropriations bill to block or remove funding, a standalone bill targeting WOTUS directly, amending the Clean Water Act, or the use of a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, which would automatically prevent WOTUS from taking effect and keep EPA from implementing similar rules.
Any of these would be acceptable avenues for Congress to protect private property rights and the sovereign power of the states.
Lawton Constitution: Six Year Highway Bill May Pass by Thanksgiving
Lawton Constitution
Wednesday October 28, 2015
Sen. Jim Inhofe
(Editor’s note: The following are Sen. Jim Inhofe’s remarks on Senate floor regarding the importance of long-term highway funding.)
As you’ve heard me say before, my top priority as Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee has been and continues to be passing a long-term highway reauthorization bill. Since the expiration of SAFETEA-LU in 2009, Congress has resorted to passing short-term extension after short term extension just to keep the highway program in operation.
As a result, industry, stakeholders, and local government leaders have lost faith in Congress’s ability to provide funding certainty to maintain and advance our surface transportation infrastructure.
Ranking Member Barbara Boxer and I have been fighting to change this and reverse the trend of wasteful short-term patches.
On June 24, our committee unanimously voted to advance the DRIVE Act, a 6-year reauthorization bill, to the Senate.
In July, the Senate gave strong bipartisan support – by a vote of 65 to 34 – for the DRIVE Act, which also included contributions from the Senate Commerce Committee and Senate Banking Committee.
The Senate worked hard and across party lines to put forward a solution for our nation’s roads and bridges. We ended the summer by passing yet another short-term patch in order to give more time for the House to join our efforts.
Unfortunately, we are now three days away from facing another cliff, and the two Chambers have not yet been able to conference a long-term transportation solution.
However, Chairman Bud Shuster and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee marked up a 6-year reauthorization bill last Thursday. I am proud to see that both chambers are on similar pages.
Both bills: recognize the need for a national freight program, further environmental streamlining, place a new focus on innovation, provide states with flexibility, and most importantly, both bills provide necessary long-term certainty.
We are now one step closer to putting America back on the map as the best place to do business.
It is my understanding that the House intends to move Chairman Shuster’s 6-year reauthorization bill through the full House over the next two weeks.
Unlike in years past, I expect a very short conference period. And because we still face this important process, Congress will need one more extension to get us to the finish line.
I realize there are many moving discussions on larger deals on Debt Limit and budget caps. However, there is agreement that the Surface Transportation Bill can and will move on its own timeline.
The House will move a shortterm extension to November 20 this week, and I hope the Senate passes it quickly so the House can move the T&I reported bill on the floor and we can move to a quickly resolved conference.
Due to the similarity in both of our bills, I am confident Congress can – and should – have a bill on the president’s desk by Thanksgiving.
If we fail to get this done by Nov. 20, we will be faced with two new, significant hurdles.
First, Congress has other very pressing deadlines to address in December to include: Dec. 11,when legislation funding the federal government expires; Dec. 31, when a host of important tax provisions expire; and another Dec. 31 deadline, when provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act – which the president vetoed – will expire, provisions such as enlistment bonuses for our all-volunteer
force.
Addressing these deadlines will require Congress’ undivided attention. Some of the solutions for these bills could also result, I fear, in Members attempting to siphon off the pay forms in the DRIVE Act.
The second significant hurdle we face is that later this year, the Highway Trust Fund will drop to a dangerously low level, as DOT Sec. Foxx has warned.
At that point, agencies at the federal and state level will begin to implement cash management procedures that significantly affect the State’s construction seasons.
Mark my words — a failure for Congress to enact a long-term bill by Thanksgiving will result in a lost 2016 construction season. Congress
will return to its current pattern of short-term extensions and continue to kick the can down the road for the unforeseeable future and to the determent of our country’s economy.
This is a terrible outcome that must be avoided at all cost. By making industry and states continue to hold their breath and budgets, we rob taxpayers of cost efficient project planning and continue to stall on launching major economy-boosting projects.
Just look at my state of Oklahoma, which lost $63 million in construction dollars over the past few years as a direct result of inefficiency and contracting uncertainty that comes from short-term extensions.
When Congress passes short term extensions, we lose 30 percent off the top. This is why the conservative position is to pass long-term bills.
With a fully-funded, long-term reauthorization, Oklahoma would actually see a savings of $122 million and millions more in efficiency savings from long-term commitments and early completion savings from contractors.
I have no doubt if you ask your states’ industry and government leaders, they will share the same experience.
It’s time Congress fulfills its constitutional duty to fund our roads and bridges. Americans demand it, and our economy depends on it.
As I stated earlier, I am confident that the Senate and House will work together to get this bill to the President’s desk within the next few weeks.
I wish my counterpart on the House side, Chairman Shuster, the best of luck moving forward. I look forward to working with him in conference and to sending the President legislation that will advance our economy and help to bring jobs back to America.
Adam Shaw
A top Republican senator is crying foul after the Environmental Protection Agency and a key White House office declined to take part in an upcoming hearing on the administration’s role in international climate negotiations, ahead of a landmark conference in Paris next month.
The Tuesday hearing was initially pitched as a joint hearing between the Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC.) The hearing now is expected to be held only by the SFRC and to feature one witness -- the Obama administration's special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern.
Republican EPW sources told FoxNews.com that Democrats in the SFRC objected to a joint hearing, while invitations to the EPA and White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) were both declined. EPW Chairman Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who is well-known for his global warming skepticism, voiced frustration at the response.
“The Obama administration and Senate Democrats have made it extremely difficult to provide necessary and appropriate Congressional oversight to the president’s international climate negotiations,” Infofe said in a statement.
The hearing will be held in anticipation of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris at the end of November. The conference is a critical summit for an administration that has made cutting carbon emissions a centerpiece of its second-term agenda. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Monday that President Obama is considering attending the Paris talks.
Considering the summit's importance, Republicans want to question top environmental policy officials in the administration on their intentions.
“The CEQ has always been any administration's filter, and played a leadership role, on environmental issues and international environmental issues. The EPA is responsible for what we can tell to be the vast majority of the 26-28 percent of greenhouse gas reductions and yet we believe that ultimately this hearing will not feature the environmental agencies and will solely feature Mr. Stern,” a Senate EPW majority aide told FoxNews.com.
“We believe a hearing featuring all those witnesses would be useful, as witnesses have a tendency to defer to witnesses who are not in the room and it would be helpful to get a comprehensive perspective from the administration for the Senate of what will be part of this agreement, what has led up to this, what interagency interaction there has been, and the work involved.”
But in a letter responding to Inhofe, the EPA said the hearing would be out of the purview of the agency.
“[The] agency cannot speak to the full suite of domestic policies that are being considered in these negotiations and is not the party responsible for developing the total emissions reduction numbers for the U.S.,” Associate Administrator Laura Vaught wrote.
While Tuesday's hearing will now be now conducted solely by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, EPW Republicans said they want hold their own hearing with Stern, the EPA and the CEQ later in the year. However, the State Department has informed the committee that Stern would not be able to attend an EPW hearing unless the EPA or CEQ also were in attendance.
The aide told FoxNews.com they consider scrutiny of the upcoming Paris agreement to be important, saying it would mirror the Kyoto agreement – which the U.S. did not sign – and require a substantial commitment to the international community.
The White House already has enlisted a number of companies to bolster its push for an international climate pledge
White House officials say 81 companies have signed on to the American Business Act on Climate pledge, including Intel, Coca-Cola, Google and Walmart. By signing, the companies promise to advocate for a strong climate deal ahead of the negotiations in Paris.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Adam Shaw is a Politics Reporter for FoxNews.com. He can be reached here or on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.
