Cornyn: Time to End EPA’s Stranglehold on Texas’ Economy

Today, I cosponsored The Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, introduced by Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which stops the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from implementing backdoor cap-and-trade regulations.

This measure is critical to ending the Obama Administration's energy takeover as they continue to force their command and control agenda on states through backdoor EPA regulations, which are crippling businesses and economic development throughout the nation. The EPA has enacted rules on greenhouse gases which the Congress never intended. Unfortunately, Texas is no stranger to this administrative overreach by the EPA which has taken over critical portions of our state's emissions permitting program. I hope that the Senate will quickly take up this bill and pass it to release the EPA's stranglehold on Texas and our nation's economy.

The bill will protect jobs in America’s manufacturing sector, protect consumers from higher energy costs, put Congress in charge of nation’s climate change policies, and preserve the public health provisions of the Clean Air Act. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY) today introduced the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011 in the U.S. House of Representatives with 6 Republican and 3 Democratic cosponsors including Representatives Dan Boren (D-OK), Nick Rahall (D-WV), and Collin Peterson (D-MN).