WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), released the following statement on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) to announce that the Agency is soliciting public input on whether and how to change the way it considers costs and benefits in making regulatory decisions. Through the ANPRM, the agency will seek public input to consider in developing any subsequent proposed rule. The notice is responsive to recent calls from Barrasso and other EPW members for EPA to reexamine how the costs and benefits of regulations are calculated.

“During the Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency exaggerated the benefits of Washington regulations and misjudged how costly they are to the economy,” said Barrasso. “Punishing regulations like the so-called ‘Clean Power Plan’ would have cost Wyoming’s energy workers their jobs and devastated communities throughout the state. Now the Trump administration is taking important steps to make sure the agency can no longer abuse the cost-benefit analysis process.”

Background Information:

On Jan. 12, 2018, Barrasso and every Republican member of the EPW committee sent a letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in support of the agency’s proposal to repeal the Obama administration’s burdensome Clean Power Plan (CPP) regulation. In the letter, the Senators applauded the Trump administration for revisiting how costs and benefits are calculated. The letter stated, “The prior administration employed accounting policies that generated outsized benefits and minimized costs to justify costly [EPA Office of Air and Radiation] rules, such as the CPP. As you have done in this proposal to repeal the CPP, EPA should continue to examine and correct those issues so that future policies are grounded on sound cost-benefit analyses.”  

On May 15, 2017, Barrasso sent a letter to the EPA in support of efforts to review past burdensome regulations issued by the agency. The letter was also signed by Senators John Boozman (R-AR), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Mike Rounds (R-SD), and Roger Wicker (R-MS). In the letter, the Senators highlighted key areas of concern, including the prior administration’s use of the social cost of carbon and particulate matter co-benefits.

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