Senator maps GOP strategy on environment

Senate Republicans are planning a full-on assault against a wide range of the Obama administration’s environmental rules, with a focus on overturning them or cutting their funding. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, told reporters Wednesday that the Congressional Review Act (CRA) will be a primary tool for the GOP. The CRA, a key piece of Republicans’ Contract with America in the 1990s, allows an expedited route for Congress to vote to overturn regulations, including those from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Inhofe is prioritizing fights against the EPA’s climate rules for power plants, its rule to redefine its Clean Water Act jurisdiction, potential limits on methane emissions for the oil gas sectors and ozone pollution limits. But the GOP will also battle Obama on larger fronts, such as the “social cost of carbon,” the internal accounting it uses to calculate the benefits of climate change regulations. Inhofe identified a total of six priorities for the committee, including infrastructure, changing the Endangered Species Act, rewriting the Toxic Substances Control Act and overseeing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission...more