Defunding EPA’s Ability to Regulate CO2

Nicolas Loris / February 14, 2011

Last Friday, House Republicans re-introduced legislation that would fund the federal government for the remainder of fiscal year 2011. This iteration included deeper cuts that would reduce spending for the rest of the year by a total of $100 billion compared to the President’s budget proposal. Though the new proposal includes $16 billion in unwise cuts to security spending, taking their initial spending reduction proposal back to the drawing board for more cuts shows lawmakers’ commitment to putting the federal budget on a sustainable path, and is a promising step forward.

Among the several needed cuts made by the House majority’s revamped proposal is a provision to prohibit funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) under the Clean Air Act. This spending cut proposal is a move that makes economic and fiscal sense. Congress never intended the Clean Air Act to cover carbon dioxide (CO2), and the result of doing so would be economically catastrophic. (more…)