EPA head vows to defend climate rules to lawmakers

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said the Senate’s Tuesday vote to kill the agency’s key climate change rule means she and the Obama administration need to do a better job explaining their vision for the energy sector and their goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from it.

At a Bloomberg Politics event Wednesday morning, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy acknowledged that many lawmakers are skittish about the long-term impact of the Clean Power Plan, after senators voted 52-46 to undo it.

{mosads}“The Senate vote yesterday is certainly something I’m going to pay attention to. Nothing Congress does is meaningless,” she said.

“We have to continue to do a better job of explaining to them that everything EPA is doing with this rule and everything else is protecting their kids’ future.”

McCarthy said the agency is going to push forward with its climate change work between now and the end of Obama’s presidency, a regulatory agenda that touches on everything from the power sector to emissions from cars.

“We want to continue to show that actions work, that they do not destroy the economy, that they work and we just have to focus on the science,” McCarthy said of debates over climate change science in Congress.

The Clean Power Plan, a rule designed to slash carbon emissions from the power sector 32 percent by 2030, has drawn scorn from Republicans and some Democrats, who worry about its impact on energy prices, grid reliability and jobs in the coal sector, which stands to be hit particularly hard by the rule.

Senators approved a resolution to block the rule on Tuesday, and a House committee is expected to clear its own on Wednesday. Obama has promised to veto any legislation blocking the rule, the cornerstone of his climate change agenda.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R) led the charge against the Clean Power Plan in the Senate. Both hail from states whose coal sectors have suffered under declining demand and have warned about the further impact of the EPA’s rulemaking.

McCarthy acknowledged that a transition to clean energy — like the one envisaged in the Clean Power Plan — will end up hurting coal-producing communities around the United States, and she said lawmakers should look to craft policies to help the economies in those areas.

But that doesn’t mean moving away from cleaner energy sources.

“Denying a transition that is already happening and denying climate change is not going to help those communities,” she said.