Washington, D.C. — The Wyoming delegation applauded Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt for signing a proposed rule on Tuesday, Oct. 10, to withdraw the burdensome and illegal Clean Power Plan.

U.S. Senators Mike Enzi, John Barrasso and Representative Liz Cheney, all R-Wyo., said the Obama-era Clean Power Plan mandates unrealistic carbon reductions.

They also said it would essentially stop new coal power plants from being constructed as well as force most existing plants to close in the coming years.

“It is great to see the Trump Administration taking action to roll back the unfair and onerous Clean Power Plan,” Enzi said. “The Obama-era regulation oversteps the EPA’s legal bounds and directly attacks America’s coal industry. The federal government should not pick winners and losers in the marketplace. This rule risks increasing energy prices and destroying thousands of high-paying jobs that support our communities. The end of this burdensome regulation will be a win for Wyoming and our country as a whole.”

“I am glad to see that the Environmental Protection Agency is taking formal steps to repeal the Clean Power Plan,” Barrasso said. “The EPA is supposed to issue reasonable regulations to protect America’s air. The Clean Power Plan was unreasonable and unlawful. It would have hurt energy workers in Wyoming and harmed the state’s economy. I look forward to working with Administrator Pruitt as he pursues policies that protect our environment and allow America’s economy to grow.”

"EPA Administrator Pruitt's decision to repeal the Obama Administration's disastrous ‘Clean Power Plan’ is an important and necessary step toward reversing the harmful Obama-era policies that strangled our economy,” Cheney said. “Wyoming's communities and fossil fuel industry were hit the hardest by Obama's anti-coal agenda for the past eight years. For too long the Clean Power Plan killed jobs and needlessly wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in an unsuccessful attempt to increase renewable energy and decrease fossil fuels."

The EPA’s proposal to withdraw the Clean Power Plan stresses that the rule exceeded the agency’s authority as established by Congress and states that the EPA will hold a public comment period where it will determine what policies are needed in the rule’s place.