The EPA's national air quality standard for ozone could be one of the rules targeted by the GOP. GOP plans strategy to stymie EPA

Get ready for a string of up-or-down votes on the Obama administration’s environmental record.

Republicans plotting their offensive against the Obama administration’s environmental policies are eyeing a powerful weapon that would force the Democratic-held Senate to schedule votes on nullifying controversial regulations.


GOP lawmakers say they want to upend a host of Environmental Protection Agency rules by whatever means possible, including the Congressional Review Act, a rarely used legislative tool that allows Congress to essentially veto recently completed agency regulations.

The law lets sponsors skip Senate filibusters, meaning Republicans don’t have to negotiate with Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for a floor vote or secure the tricky 60 votes typically needed to do anything in the Senate.

The House doesn’t have the same expedited procedures, but it’s assumed the GOP majority would have little trouble mustering the votes needed to pass disapproval resolutions.

A spate of contentious EPA rules that are soon to be finalized could be prime targets, including the national air quality standard for ozone, toxic emission limits for industrial boilers and a pending decision about whether to regulate coal ash as hazardous waste.

“We’re not going to let EPA regulate what they’ve been unable to legislate. And if I’m chairman, we’re going to have a very aggressive, proactive schedule,” Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the likely incoming chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, told POLITICO.

Upton said specific legislative plans won’t be made for the Energy and Commerce Committee until the fight for the chairmanship shakes out. Rep. Joe Barton of Texas and several other Republicans are challenging Upton for the slot.

Once the chairmanship is nailed down, “then we will launch a full offensive,” Upton said. As far as specific options, he said, “the Congressional Review Act certainly is a good one.”

But the law comes with complications. For one thing, direct attacks against the administration’s policies would certainly face White House opposition and difficulty getting the two-thirds vote needed in both chambers to overcome a veto. And it might look bad politically to be seen as simply undoing environmental regulations with no replacement or direction.

“It’s kind of a blunt instrument,” a former House Republican aide said of the review act. “Whatever it is you’re doing, you’re knocking it out of the box. That doesn’t necessarily get you the right policy result.”

And Republican efforts to demonize EPA could come back to bite them, a former Senate Democratic staffer said. “The risk in that strategy is being seen as politically motivated even though public health is at stake.”

The review act has been successful only once since it was enacted in 1996. In 2001, the Republican-controlled Congress voted to overturn the Clinton administration’s ergonomics rule. The resolution was signed by incoming President George W. Bush.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) attempted to use it in June to block EPA climate regulations, but her resolution narrowly failed to clear the chamber by a vote of 47-53 after a furious lobbying effort from the White House and Democratic leadership. Several moderate Democrats were placated by a promise to hold a vote on a two-year delay of the EPA climate rules, which has yet to be scheduled.

Matt Dempsey, spokesman for Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), predicted several Democrats would join the GOP in voting to roll back energy regulations. “Democrats received the message loud and clear about the Obama agenda” after this fall’s election, he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Democrats joined Republicans in stopping some of these regulations coming down the pike.”

Jeff Holmstead, an industry attorney and former EPA air chief during the George W. Bush administration, said the mere threat of a congressional vote could prod EPA to issue less aggressive rules.

“In some ways, the threat of the CRA may be just as useful as actually doing a resolution of disapproval because if the White House believes that a rule is controversial enough or may be controversial enough, they certainly don’t want to be in a position to have to veto,” he said. “I think they are certainly and legitimately concerned about being viewed as anti-industry and anti-business.”

Republicans are also considering efforts to force the administration to win congressional approval before major rules are final.

Upton suggested such an approach in an October Washington Times op-ed. “Federal government agencies have overstepped their authority and have not been held accountable for their aggressive actions,” he wrote. “No significant regulation should take effect until Congress has voted to approve it and the president has had an opportunity to approve or veto congressional action.”

One option being floated is to reform the Congressional Review Act to force lawmakers to endorse major rules before they take effect, said industry attorney Scott Segal. “In essence, for some smaller category of regulations, the burden of proof would be reversed relative to the existing CRA,” he said.

“Such a proposal has analogs in certain states and would be consistent with several of the 2010 campaign themes: smaller government, economic recovery and forcing elected officials to take responsibility for the actions of government,” Segal said.

While a direct assault on environmental regulations might not work, Republicans and EPA foes have other weapons at their disposal. A popular strategy in both chambers next year will be to choke off funding for contentious EPA regulations, including efforts to address global warming.

“You’re going to see House Republicans aggressively oppose efforts through the front door or the back door to implement a national energy tax, which continues to be the president’s approach to energy,” Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), former House GOP Conference chairman and a possible 2012 presidential candidate, told POLITICO.

“We think that’s the wrong approach, and you’ll see House Republicans use the power of the purse to prevent any regulatory effort to implement that,” Pence added.

During this year’s markup of EPA’s annual spending bill, House members defeated several amendments aimed at limiting EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

“I suspect we will have more success with that type of thing in this coming session,” said Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson, the top Republican on the House subcommittee that oversees EPA’s spending. “There’s obviously concern about EPA regulating greenhouse gases.”

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), seeking to reclaim the Appropriations Committee chairmanship, said this week the panel “will be exercising its prerogative to withhold funding for prospective EPA regulations and defund through the rescissions process many of those already on the books.”

Other “must-pass” bills could be used to attack EPA, as well.

“The most dangerous, or draconian, scenario would be one in which a rider prohibiting any EPA spending on climate issues is attached to, say, DOD appropriations,” the former Democratic aide said, because the administration would face a tough political choice over whether to veto the massive spending bill.

EPA officials and greens have warned that the impending campaigns against EPA rules pose a threat to public health, and the White House has consistently opposed efforts to hamstring the agency.

“This comes back to public health. It’s extremely important for EPA to base its decisions on the best science, to be in concert with the law,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said Monday during a panel discussion.

“The environment is not a partisan issue,” she added. “It shouldn’t be.”

And the environmental community plans to fight “tooth and nail” against any efforts to stymie EPA regulations, said Joe Mendelson, director of global warming policy at the National Wildlife Federation. “In the end, we don’t think they will prevail, because when faced with a vote between more pollution [and] protecting public health, public health will win.”

Darren Samuelsohn contributed to this report.