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Murphy Amendment on EPA's ‘Social Cost of Carbon' Adopted

8/1/13

Murphy Amendment on EPA’s ‘Social Cost of Carbon’ Adopted  


For Immediate Release: Thursday, August 1, 2013
Contact: Dain Pascocello, 202.225.2301

Washington, DC — Today the House of Representatives adopted in a bipartisan vote of 234-178 an amendment authored by Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Tim Murphy (PA-18) to put Congresss back in the driver’s seat on a pending EPA regulation that would effectively shut down the use of coal.

Chairman Murphy’s amendment to the Energy Consumers Relief Act (H.R. 1582) requires the Environmental Protection Agency to obtain congressional authorization before implementing its “social cost of carbon” estimate. During floor debate, Mr. Murphy said Congress and the American people must be part of the deliberation on this new standard, which would have a far-reaching impact on the economy with the potential for significant job losses, especially in the coal sector.

“We’ve already seen what the ‘social cost’ of the War on Coal is today — the cost is jobs. Three weeks ago, more than 380 workers at the Hatfield’s Ferry and Mitchell Power Plants were told they were losing their jobs. The plants had to shut down under EPA regulations after they had just spent hundreds of millions in environmental modernizations,” said Rep. Murphy.

Watch Mr. Murphy’s floor speech here.

“The EPA’s policies have real-world consequences,” said Murphy, who pointed to the potential for widespread poverty in coal-mining communities. “Poverty leads to devastated communities, early death, and lost dreams for a generation of Americans and their children.”

“When people lose their jobs, we give them unemployment compensation. They go hungry, we give them food stamps. They lose unemployment, we give them welfare. They lose their homes, we give them public housing. They lose their dignity and their pride — and the government has nothing left to give when all these folks ever really wanted was a job and a chance for the American dream.”

More than 15 organizations representing workers and stakeholders, including the Building Trades, Boilermakers, and Mine Workers, all weighed in with support for the Murphy Amendment (click here for full list of supporters and background material). Earlier this month, Chairman Murphy announced a review of the impact EPA regulations such as the “social cost of carbon” have on jobs and the economy. While that review is ongoing, the Murphy amendment would block the “social cost of carbon” regulation from taking effect until Congress officially debated and weighed in on the matter.

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