Contacts:

Matt Dempsey Matt_Dempsey@epw.senate.gov (202) 224-9797

David Lungren David_Lungren@epw.senate.gov (202) 224-5642

  INHOFE SEES STRONG BIPARTISAN OPPOSITON TO BOILER MACT

EPA Loses Gamble with the Court, Putting up to 800,000 jobs at Risk

Link to Senate Jobs Report: EPA's Anti-Industrial Policy

Washington, D.C.-Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, issued the following statement today in response to the order issued yesterday by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, rejecting EPA's request for an additional 18 months to fix the Boiler MACT rule.

"The Boiler MACT rule is a massive regulatory failure, as even EPA has implicitly admitted," Sen. Inhofe said.  "The court has effectively decreed that this EPA rule that puts up to 800,000 jobs at risk will now go final.  This disastrous outcome lies at the feet of EPA.  There is no doubt that Republicans, and many Democrats, will not allow this rule to stand as currently drafted.

"EPA essentially gambled with the court, hoping to get 15 additional months to fix this rule.  Instead, an unsympathetic court gave EPA 30 days - which means the rule opposed in the Senate by 23 Republicans and 18 Democrats will now go final.  EPA has nevertheless insisted that it will immediately ‘reconsider' the rule. With all due respect, this makes a mockery of the regulatory process: in essence, EPA will finalize a rule that it doesn't believe in.  What's more, thousands of manufacturers across the nation are left wondering what the requirements will be, when they will be required, and left straining to understand EPA's confused and meandering management of this entire process.

"One lesson here is that EPA's rule-by-consent-decree approach doesn't work.  Yet EPA is doing the same on several pending rules that pose grave harm to jobs and the economy.  So much for regulatory certainty.  And one wonders: how does all of this fit into President Obama's recent executive order to institute regulatory reform?"

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