GOVERNMENT AGENCY SEEKS TO CIRCUMVENT  CONGRESSIONAL VOTE

“I have long maintained that the Congress – not the unelected EPA – must decide major economic and energy policy. EPA regulation will have an enormous impact on the economic security of West Virginia and our energy future.

I intend to vote for Senator Murkowski’s Resolution of Disapproval because I believe we must send a strong message that the fate of West Virginia’s economy, our manufacturing industries, and our workers should not be solely in the hands of EPA.”

Thursday’s vote is not about climate science, or the auto emissions standards (which can stand on the CAFE law without EPA’s help), a “Dirty Air Act” (greenhouse gases are not the sort of air pollution that can be seen or smelled or felt, so they don’t “dirty” the air as anyone would reasonably understand the term), or bailing anyone out.

The vote is fundamentally about one thing: who decides our economic future?

In our Constitutional Republic, the Congress of the United States is the legitimate legislative branch of government, charged with making the laws. A decision to adopt any national global warming program is an enormous one, with hundreds of billions of dollars and personal liberties at stake. This is simply not something that ought to be done through the backdoor via an unelected, unaccountable agency like the EPA.

Today it will be in the Senate’s hands to vote on whether they will stand up for themselves as an institution. Will they decide to take control of the country’s economic future by voting YES on SJ Res 26? Will they put the question of whether the country should adopt a global warming program, potentially what it should look like, in Congress, where it belongs?

Any senator who votes NO will be voting to look the other way, to outsource legislative responsibility to the EPA, and allow that agency to run roughshod over the U.S. economy. They will do so at their own electoral peril.

There is still time to let your senators know how you feel about this vote…

(Editor’s Note:  The preceding is via the 9-12 Project).