Senate Dem vows to fight Obama’s carbon emissions regulations

On Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released draft rules that would be the first time the agency regulated carbon emissions from new power plants.

{mosads}Manchin said the federal government should be a partner, “not an adversary,” to American energy producers. He argued that the new limits would be impossible to meet because the technology is not yet readily available.

“Today’s announcement of the EPA’s new source performance standard is direct evidence that this administration is trying to hold the coal industry to impossible standards,” Manchin said. “Never before has the federal government forced an industry to do something that is technologically impossible.”

Manchin said the new regulations would harm the economy and raise energy prices, especially in home state, which is a large producer of coal. But EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said that ensuring better public health by making the environment cleaner would not make the U.S. economy “crumble.”