On the recordJune 25, 2015
This amendment would strike $2 million in funding from the Environmental Protection Agency Office of Policy and transfer those funds to the deficit reduction account. The Office of Policy is located within the EPA Office of the Administrator and is the primary policy arm for the Agency, or what I have been calling the regulatory nerve center. The funding for this office directly supports this administration's radical regulatory agenda that is putting an alarming number of my constituents out of work, and they are not shy about it. The head of the EPA's Office of Policy, Joel Beauvais, on October 13, 2014, boasted to a group of New York University law students that his office ``coordinates the process through which all of the EPA's rules are developed, including the clean power plan.'' Well, the so-called clean power plan is projected to increase energy costs by as much as $479 billion over the next 15 years. For my constituents in the beautiful Second District of West Virginia, that means an average electricity price increase of 12 percent. This is something we cannot afford. Yesterday, on the floor of this Chamber, we passed the ratepayer protection plan, which will stop the clean power plan, but the Office of Policy is coordinating more than just the clean power plan. The EPA issues about 150 new regulations each year, and this office is right at the center. Another rule that deserves attention is the EPA's proposed ozone standard.…
