Category: Washington DC News

Angels in Adoption
By Senator Mike Rounds
August 21, 2015

Providing children with a loving home is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give. Strong families are an important pillar of society that help bring stability to communities and teach core values to future generations. Every child deserves the love and support that a family provides. I applaud those who are committed to strong and healthy families, especially those involved in adoption and foster care. That is why it is an honor to nominate Bethany Christian Services of Eastern and Western South Dakota as 2015 Angels in Adoption.

For more than 25 years, Bethany Christian Services has been helping children find loving, permanent homes in which to thrive and grow in South Dakota. Bethany accomplishes this by offering support for both international and domestic adoptions, which includes foster care adoption. I have always been pro-life, so participating in the Angels in Adoption program is important to me. Life is a wonderful gift, and families who adopt or foster children in need are giving back the gift of love. I admire organizations like Bethany Christian Services, who facilitate adoptions, help women through pregnancies and find foster parents for abused and neglected youth. Through their dedication and commitment to foster care and adoption, Bethany Christian Services has touched the lives of thousands of children and helped them overcome tough challenges at a young age. Nominating them as Angels in Adoption is the least I can do to say thanks.

Angels in Adoption is a non-profit program sponsored by Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI) that seeks to raise awareness about the unique needs of children without families and advocate on behalf of orphans and foster children. Each year, Members of Congress have the opportunity to nominate an “Angel” – an individual, family or organization that has made extraordinary contributions on behalf of children in need of families.

According to CCAI, more than 100,000 kids in the U.S. are eligible for adoption, but nearly 32 percent will wait more than three years before being placed in a permanent home. Worldwide, the numbers are even more staggering. The Angels in Adoption program sheds light on the need for loving families to open their homes to these children. It also seeks to raise awareness about the rewarding and positive difference adoption makes in the lives of children, parents and their communities.

The adoption process can often be cumbersome and difficult, but organizations like Bethany Christian Services work to streamline the process and make certain both the children and adoptive families have a positive experience.  I’m proud to partner with CCAI to nominate Bethany Christian Services of Eastern and Western South Dakota as 2015 Angels in Adoption. May the organization – and others like it who offer adoption and foster care services – continue to do great work to help children find forever homes. I am inspired by all families who chose to open their homes and hearts to kids in need, as well as the organizations that support them. The impact adoption can have on families, children and societies is truly life-changing.

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Obama’s Clean Power Plan is Fundamentally Flawed
By Senator Mike Rounds
Aug. 14, 2015

Earlier this summer, President Obama announced his so-called “Clean Power Plan” final rule, which requires states to cut greenhouse gas emissions nearly a third within 15 years. This sweeping new mandate requires states to completely rework their electric grid and dramatically reduce the amount of electricity they get from coal-fired plants. The result of which will be higher electricity rates for every single household and business in the country. Additionally, energy production will be reduced, bringing further uncertainty to the electric grid. All of this comes with very little benefit to the environment.

In South Dakota, we have scorching hot summers and freezing cold winters. We rely on dependable energy to protect us from our extreme weather conditions. Yet the clean power rule could jeopardize our current system. All of this is being done with no input from Congress. It is another example in which American families are being forced to suffer the consequences of the President’s overreaching, over-burdensome environmental agenda without any input or recourse for policies with which they disagree.

Since the President announced the final rule, South Dakota joined 14 other states in a petition to the D.C. Court of Appeals to block the egregious plan. In the appeal, the states ask the court to issue a ruling in the matter before September 8, 2015, one year before they are required to submit plans to EPA for how they will reduce emissions as required by the Clean Power Plan. Additionally, South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley has joined a lawsuit challenging the rule. It is one of a number of suits that challenge whether the EPA exceeded its powers when issuing the final rule to cut power-plant carbon emissions.

In the Senate, the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), of which I am a member, recently passed the bipartisan Affordable Reliable Energy Now Act (ARENA), which is the principal legislative vehicle to roll back the Clean Power Plan rule. Our legislation is a common sense solution that gives states additional time and flexibility to comply with these new rules. It also protects hard-working American families from bearing the brunt of the Clean Power Plan through higher electricity rates.

ARENA requires the EPA to submit a report to Congress describing the quantity of greenhouse gas emissions the Clean Power Plan is actually expected to reduce, and to conduct modeling to show the impacts of the rule on the climate indicators used to develop the final rule. As an original cosponsor of ARENA, I’m committed to working with my colleagues to put a stop to this costly carbon emissions rule.

The Obama administration, through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has been solely focused on cementing the President’s legacy as a champion of the environment. I, too, believe that we have an obligation to protect our natural resources for future generations. But it must not be at the expense of our economy, jobs and the current electric grid. It is another example of an Administration stretching the limits of the law to issue costly new regulations at the expense of American growth and innovation. It underscores the need for a bipartisan approach to address executive overreach – such as my RESTORE resolution to reinforce Congressional oversight as part of the rulemaking process. I will continue to work to protect taxpayers from this and other costly rules.

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The Obama EPA Strikes Again
By Senator John Thune

If there is one thing for which the Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can be counted on, it is the repeated issuance of rules and regulations that stifle growth and make life harder and more costly for American families and businesses. The agency, stocked with a seemingly endless amount of red tape, lived up to its reputation earlier this month when it approved the final rule of the so-called “Clean Power Plan,” which could be more accurately described as a backdoor national energy tax.

This national energy tax is unwelcome news for South Dakota consumers because it will hurt jobs, cause costs to skyrocket, and threaten our grid reliability. South Dakota is an energy-intense state – we have cold winters and hot summers. As a result, South Dakota families spend a high share of their income on energy costs. While consumers across the state are likely to feel the pain from this burdensome new regulation, it is low-income families and seniors living on fixed incomes who will be hit the hardest. Many families are already finding it difficult to make ends meet. Higher energy costs – and the resulting costs that will be added to existing products and services – will only make that struggle more problematic.

The EPA’s rule will require a 32 percent across-the-board reduction in carbon emissions from 2005 levels by 2030. Such a dramatic rate reduction will target the heart of America’s affordable and reliable coal generation. South Dakota’s state reduction target is 47 percent, which is one of the highest in the country and far exceeds the national average.

For the Big Stone Plant, which is South Dakota’s only major coal-fired electric generating unit and nearing completion of a $384 million environmental upgrade, the dust has yet to settle on existing regulations that the EPA has piled on it, including Regional Haze and Utility MACT. Despite the Big Stone Plant soon becoming one of the cleanest plants in the country, the EPA’s latest set of rules will threaten the plant’s multi-million dollar investment. In order to recoup this investment, it may be forced to pass its costs onto ratepayers.

In January, I wrote to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy calling on the agency to think twice about the impact their D.C.-based rule-making process would have on South Dakotans halfway across the country. I urged Administrator McCarthy to abandon these rules, or at the very least, reconsider South Dakota’s emission reduction target to more accurately reflect our existing energy portfolio and the investments utility companies and ratepayers have already made in efficiency upgrades. Not only did the EPA move forward with these rules anyway, but South Dakota’s emission reduction target actually increased in the final rule.

I have said it before: Rule-makers in Washington’s concrete jungle, whether intentionally or unintentionally, force one-size-fits-all rules that oftentimes have a devastating impact on agriculture producers, homeowners, and small businesses across the country. With its national energy tax, the Obama EPA has struck again. I will continue to do all I can to see that this ill-conceived rule is reversed.

The EPA’s Unfair ‘Sue and Settle’ Tactics
By Senator Mike Rounds

Too often, rather than writing and implementing regulations in an open and transparent process, environmental regulations are enacted as a result of citizen suits prompted by environmental activists. This practice is commonly known as “sue-and-settle.” I recently chaired a Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Subcommittee hearing to examine the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) sue-and-settle tactics and the impact they have on our economy and local governments.

Both the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act contain clauses that allow citizens to file citizen suits against a regulatory agency to reassure the agency’s compliance with federal statutes. Often, these citizen suits are being used to perpetuate this sue-and-settle process, which overwhelms regulatory agencies and results in settlement agreements and consent decrees requiring agencies to promulgate major regulations within an arbitrarily imposed timeline.

It is worrisome that these agreements are often negotiated behind closed doors, with no transparency and little input from the public before a final rule is issued. The parties responsible for implementing the rules, such as states and local governments, are nearly completely cut out of the process. They are not even consulted about the practicalities of the settlement agreement. Even more alarming, an EPW Committee report recently released found evidence of the Obama Administration colluding with environmental groups to advance these cases. This unfair process allows the administration to advance its own policy agenda while circumventing Congress and the entire legislative process.

As a result, sue-and settle techniques are creating expensive, burdensome regulations that cost taxpayers billions of dollars, stifle economic growth and limit job creation. What’s worse is that these rules are being made behind closed doors by unelected bureaucrats. The American people have no voice in the process. A recent study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce found that the EPA reconsideration of the 2008 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards could cost up to $90 billion annually, making it the most expensive regulation in history.

Since October 2014, there have been 88 sue-and-settle cases, 79 of which were launched by environmental groups. This squeezes out the voice of average Americans who deserve a say in the regulations under which we all must live.  I believe our government works best when the public is involved in the decisions that affect their daily lives and agencies work transparently and in good faith. Sue-and-settle practices undermine this concept.

As chairman of the EPW Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Management, and Regulatory Oversight, I take seriously my job to hold the EPA and other agencies accountable to the American people. I will continue working to stop the unfair sue-and-settle tactics used by the administration to circumvent Congress and the American people in order to promote their agendas.

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