Supporters of the bill claim that the EPA's rules would raise gasoline prices by boosting costs for refineries that would be passed on to consumers. Opponents claim that the bill itself will raise gasoline prices by barring the agency from issuing its second set of higher fuel efficiency standards for 2017-2025 vehicles. Such standards lower consumption, and thus price, of gasoline, they said.
"Make no mistake--if we allow the EPA to move forward unchecked, its actions will only drive gasoline and other energy prices higher," panel chairman Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said about his bill.
According to the report, EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson told Congress last week: "All told, nullifying this part of the Clean Air Act would forfeit many hundreds of millions of barrels of oil savings, at a time when gas prices are rising yet again. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why you would vote to massively increase America's oil dependence."
"Passage of this bill puts polluters ahead of the public and stops the EPA from protecting the health of every American," Franz Matzner of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement cited by the newspaper after the committee vote.
Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is championing the Upton legislation in the Senate, said the Obama administration is trying to regulate what it cannot legislate "regardless of whether the American people want it or not." He added in a statement cited by the paper: "This is an insult to the millions of Americans who are already struggling to make ends meet or find a job."
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), and chairman of the Environment & Public Works Committee, said Upton's bill puts "the interests of politicians and big polluters ahead of the advice of medical experts and scientists who tell us EPA must act to make the air safer and cleaner for our children to breathe." She said in a statement cited by the paper that she would continue to fight "these reckless attacks on the Clean Air Act that jeopardize public health."
All Republicans voted in favor, along with three Democrats: Representatives John Barrow (D-Ga.), Jim Matheson (D-Utah) and Mike Ross (D-Ark.). The vote follows a subcommittee's approval last week, said the report.
House GOP leaders said they would seek approval from the full House before the Easter recess, and McConnell is adding his version of the measure to an unrelated small-business bill now before the Senate. The President has indicated he would veto legislation to stop EPA's climate rules, the first of which went into effect in January.
Click hereto read the text of the bill.
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