Press Release: Rounds Questions EPA on Costly Carbon Emissions Proposal

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, today at a hearing questioned the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) plan to regulate carbon emissions. The proposal, expected to be finalized this summer, would impose costly new regulations on power plants, despite the Administration’s admission that it would do nothing to achieve its intended goal of reducing global warming.

Rounds pressed: “We have a limited number of electric generating resources in South Dakota.  Each facility is absolutely vital to meeting the energy needs of my state and our surrounding states.  In light of this, what, if any flexibility is built into your proposed rule for a state like South Dakota and what flexibility is there for facilities that are in the midst of a major upgrade – at your direction – and are now being told they need to do even more to meet these additional regulations you plan on implementing?”

Janet McCabe, Administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, failed to assure Rounds of the rule’s flexibility and was unable to answer when asked for the rule’s cost per American family.

A total of 31 states, including South Dakota, are on record opposing the Administration’s Clean Power Plan. South Dakota’s lone coal power plant, Big Stone, employs close to 100 people in Northeast South Dakota and is already under a $400 million project to comply with a different EPA regulation. Compliance is not yet complete, and this costly new rule could put the plant’s future in jeopardy, as Rounds noted in his questioning.

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