Susan Page

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Extreme weather events from typhoons to heat waves are helping make the case to Americans on the need to address climate change, the head of the EPA says, although opposition from congressional Republicans to the Obama administration's ambitious plan remains unrelenting.

"You have fires; you have droughts," Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said in an interview with Capital Download. "People may not call it climate change," but they feel the consequences from changing weather patterns, including on the economy. "This is about their own jobs, their own health, their own kids."

She says the response in states, including some led by skeptical Republican governors, bolsters the argument that dealing with climate change can carry economic benefits. Opponents warn that the administration's proposed limits on carbon emissions in existing power plants will cost jobs and hurt workers.

"Look at Iowa," McCarthy told USA TODAY's weekly newsmaker series. "Who's larger in wind industry than Iowa is? That governor is not embracing climate change. He's embracing the economy. If they collide with one another in a happy way, why wouldn't we take advantage of that? ...

"Look at Texas. How hard is this for Texas? They are making huge amounts of money on wind right now, largest ever. So we can make this economic argument just as well as I can make it environmentally."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has questioned the science behind climate change and Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad has expressed concerns about the impact of the EPA's proposal.

The administration's Clean Power Plan, unveiled in June and set to take effect next summer, would limit CO2 emissions in existing power plants. The EPA issued the proposal after Congress rejected efforts by the Obama administration and congressional Democrats to pass legislation.

This week, a 30-page report issued by the House Energy and Commerce Committee questioned the EPA's authority to impose the emission limits and warned the plan would lead to higher energy prices and fewer jobs. "A runaway regulatory train is barreling toward us, and we must do everything we can to stop it," declared Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich.

McCarthy responded that she was "very confident that we're going to make our case environmentally and economically," and she dismissed a question about whether incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who accuses the EPA of waging a "war on coal," will be able to slow down the plan's implementation.

"Certainly we'll have as many conversations on the Hill as they want to have, and I have great respect for people's opinions and concerns," she said. "But I feel very strongly that EPA was charged with addressing air pollution and that carbon pollution is no different than any other, no different in our need and authority to address it."

She dodged a question about how the Obama administration would deal with a provision in the appropriations bill passed last week by Congress that bars taxpayer money from going to the U.N. Green Climate Fund. Obama last month pledged $3 billion to the international effort to help the world's poorest countries address the effects of climate change.

"We'll go back and figure out how to address it," she said.

Over time, she predicted utility executives and other business leaders who now warn of economic catastrophe from the plan will profit from it.

"Every time that EPA has moved forward on a major law, industry or others have raised concerns, some of them in ways that I don't think are really as honest about what the rule looks like," she said. "In the end, when you move, they run and they make money off it. It's going to be the same here."