The White House has threatened to veto a resolution being voted on in the Senate this week that would undo a key Environmental Protection Agency pollution rule. A vote on the resolution by the Senate is being forced this week by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
The resolution would overturn EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which reduces smog and pollution from power plants in 27 states in the eastern United States.
“The administration strongly opposes [the resolution], which would overturn a core Clean Air Act rule that limits pollution that travels long distances and contributes to soot and smog in downwind states,” the White House said in a formal “statement of administration policy.”
The statement of administration policy says Obama’s senior advisers will recommend to the President that he veto the resolution if it reaches his desk.
“By blocking this rule, [the resolution] would cause substantial harm to public health and undermine our nation’s longstanding commitment to clean up pollution from power plants.”
The White House has argued rule would bring public health and economic benefits.
“Each year, this rule would avoid tens of thousands of premature deaths, prevent more than ten thousand heart attacks and hospital visits for respiratory and cardiovascular disease, and alleviate hundreds of thousands of childhood asthma attacks and other respiratory illnesses,” the White House said in a news release. “The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that this flexible, commonsense rule will yield hundreds of billions of dollars in net benefits each year.”
EPA said the rule, if implemented, could prevent as many as 34,000 premature deaths every year beginning in 2014.
Paul and other lawmakers from coal-producing states said the regulation would be a drag on the still struggling economy.
