The National Association of Manufacturers was cited several times in the House floor debate Thursday on H.R. 910, to prevent the EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), Congressional Record, Page H2370:

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Chair, we are here today because the EPA has continued to push this effort to pass a national energy tax. It was tried through cap-and-trade over the last year and a half. That bill went through the legislative process and was defeated in a bipartisan way. This is not a Republican or a Democrat issue when we’re talking about preventing the EPA from running millions of jobs out of our country, and that is literally what’s at stake here.

Believe me, as people look through the letters of support and as we comb through the days of testimony that we’ve had on this over the last 2 years with regard to this concept of the EPA’s regulating greenhouse gases, Madam Chair, we are talking about a proposal by the EPA that, according to the National Association of Manufacturers, would run 3 million jobs out of our country.

Now, we should all be here working feverishly to create jobs. In fact, our legislation, the National Energy Tax Prevention Act, will create jobs because it will remove the uncertainty that exists today where so many employers, so many of our job creators, are scared to death of the threat now of regulation coming over; because, again, Congress rejected their proposal for the national energy tax through cap-and-trade in a bipartisan way.

The analysis Rep. Scalise is referring to is, we presume, the earlier NAM-ACCF analysis of the Waxman-Markey bill. EPA regulation of greenhouse gases could have even greater economic consequences than that cap-and-trade legislation, which as negotiated legislation included many exemptions, subsidies, delays and deals intended to minimize the harm and job loss. EPA regulation can evade the same policy and political compromises, exacerbating the uncertainty that Rep. Scalise is right to emphasize.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), chief sponsor of H.R. 910, also inserted an NAM-cosigned letter into the record (page H2372): (continue reading…)

The Akron Beacon-Journal this week published an op-ed by Ward J. Timken Jr., chairman of the board of directors of The Timken Co., “EPA regulations weigh down the economy“.

The Timken Co. is a leading global manufacturer of highly engineered bearings, alloy steels, and related components and assemblies. Ward Timken Jr. is a member of the National Association of Manufacturers’ executive committee. He wrote:

Timken has a U.S.-favorable trade balance, with jobs in Ohio and throughout the U.S. supporting growing demand around the world. It requires us to keep costs down and drive efficiency to optimal levels.

In our Canton, Ohio, steel plants, we are continuously reducing our energy consumption and carbon intensity using highly efficient electric-arc-furnace technology and the most advanced manufacturing methods. We often collaborate with government to develop energy-saving technologies and balanced policies across party lines.

Understanding that the aims of economic and environmental progress are not mutually exclusive, I encourage you to join me to make our voices heard. Please contact our representatives in Congress and ask them to preserve jobs and the democratic process by putting a stop to the EPA’s regulatory overreach.

This week’s legislative activities in Congress to achieve that goal — stopping the EPA’s regulatory overreach — produced a mixed result. The House on Thursday voted 255-172 to pass H.R. 910, to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

The same legislation in the form of the McConnell Amendment failed Wednesday in the Senate on a 50-50 vote. However, in votes on four amendments, a majority of Senators expressed opposition in one form or another to the EPA’s current plans. As Politico summarized: “All of them failed, but 17 Democrats broke with their party and president to support measures that rein in the greenhouse gas regulations on varying levels….In all, 64 senators voted to block or delay the climate regulations, which Senate Republicans were more than happy to note.”

The NAM is certainly going to continue the fight against the EPA’s attempt to take over the making of environmental, energy and economic policy. See our website: www.NoNewRegs.org.

The House just voted 255-172 to pass H.R. 910, to block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The vote reflect bipartisan support for Congress exercising its responsibilities in setting energy, environmental and economic policy.

We’ll post the roll call vote when it becomes available.

UPDATE (3:18 p.m.): That was quick. The roll call vote is here. It shows 19 Democrats joining 236 Republicans in voting for passage.

UPDATE (3:30 p.m.): Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) of the House Energy and Commerce Committee issues a statement, “U.S. House Puts Families First, Approves Bipartisan Bill to Stop EPA From Driving up Gasoline and Energy Prices, Harming Job Creation.” Included are comments from Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY).

The release also notes the NAM’s support for the bill. Thank you for the mention.

From The Hill’s E2 Wire energy blog, “OVERNIGHT ENERGY: Senate, House climate votes on tap“:

LATE BREAKING: The Senate will vote on a GOP-backed plan to kill Environmental Protection Agency climate change rules Wednesday afternoon, according to Democrats and a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Lawmakers will vote on McConnell’s amendment to small-business legislation, as well as several Democratic alternatives. The amendments need 60 votes to pass.

Votes on the amendments to S. 493, the small business reauthorization bill, begin at 4 p.m.

Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute explains what the vote signifies in a post at BigGovernment.com, “Senate to Vote on EPA’s Power Grab: Does the Rule of Law Still Matter?”

The Senate will, one presumes, finally vote either this week or next to block EPA from imposing President Obama’s ‘other way to skin the cat’ of Kyoto-style energy rationing, by using the Clean Air Act – a law that EPA’s own public filings inescapably acknowledge was never intended for such purpose. What will be at stake is little less than the rule of law itself.

Policy sanity also stands to take a beating, or else gain a new lease on life. The United States derives over 80% of its total energy from the three fossil fuels now being regulated by the Clean Air Act on the basis of EPA’s Endangerment Finding, which by design strangles our ability to use them. Further, the Obama Administration has in effect decided that the EPA knows how to run the U. S. economy.

With über-green Germany, even nuke-happy France, appearing set to ramp up their coal use in the wake of Japan’s nuclear incident, the first rational response would be to call off EPA’s war on coal. Not to fight like mad to preserve and advance it.

The National Association of Manufacturers today sent a “Key Vote” letter to House members calling for their support for H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, which would block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. A House floor vote is scheduled for Wednesday.

Excerpt from the letter.

At a time when our economy is attempting to recover from the most severe recession since the 1930s, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with no guidance from Congress, will cost jobs and slow economic growth.

The Energy Tax Prevention Act seeks to ensure a healthy and productive discussion in Congress on harmonizing our nation’s energy, environmental and economic needs before the EPA regulates GHG emissions from stationary sources, including manufacturing facilities. Congressional debate and consensus on this issue is especially critical, as the Clean Air Act was never intended to regulate carbon.

As consumers of roughly one-third of our nation’s energy, manufacturers in the United States support a comprehensive, federal climate policy within a framework that will cause no economic harm while granting sufficient time to deploy low-carbon technologies.

The White House has issued a veto threat, making its argument on the deceptive conflation of greenhouse gas emissions with pollutants: We need EPA regulation of carbon dioxide in order to prevent asthma and bronchitis. It’s as if supporters of EPA regulation, including the Administration, lack both the intellectual and political confidence to argue the true substance of the legislation. They instead fall back on the specious “carbon pollution” claims.

You can understand a power-seeking Executive Branch arrogating legislative authority to itself, but why would Congress permit it? Yet Senate leadership still will not allow a floor vote on the McConnell-Inhofe amendment — the companion to the House bill — asserting the legislative branch’s policymaking prerogatives. The Hill’s E2 Wire reports the twists and turns and abdications in a round-up of Capitol Hill energy news, “OVERNIGHT ENERGY: House mulls rules of engagement on climate battle.”

The House Energy and Commerce Committee meets at 10 a.m. this morning to mark up and presumably vote out  H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, to prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.

The National Association of Manufacturers sent an e-mail letter to committee members Monday urging them to vote yes. Excerpt of the e-mail, signed by Aric Newhouse, senior vice president for policy and government relations:

This legislation prevents the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from stationary sources under the Clean Air Act (CAA). It would also allow the EPA to regulate mobile source GHG emissions for model years 2012-2016 but would prevent regulation during subsequent years.

Manufacturers face tremendous uncertainty as the EPA and state permitting authorities begin the implementation process of regulating GHG emissions from stationary sources. Though the EPA is currently regulating the largest new and modified facilities, it has announced that it will start regulating existing power plants and refineries in the near future. Manufacturers use one-third of our nation’s energy, and burdensome regulations on these facilities will increase manufacturers’ energy costs, hindering our competitiveness. Furthermore, as many as six million industrial facilities, power plants, hospitals, agricultural and commercial establishments eventually will be subject to regulation under the CAA.

This legislation is needed to stem the tide of the EPA’s overreach and give our nation’s job creators the assurance they need to expand their businesses and put Americans back to work.

The Wall Street Journal editorializes today in support of the bill, which would have policy set by the policymaking branch of government, Congress. From “Carbon and Democracy: Congress gets ready to overrule the EPA on cap and trade rules“:

The bill, which the committee will likely approve today and the House will likely pass later this spring, would restore the plain regulatory meaning that “pollutant” held for decades until the EPA decided in 2009 that all of a sudden it also applied to carbon. John Dingell helped write the Clean Air Act and its 1990 revision, and the Michigan Democrat has repeatedly said that neither was ever meant to address climate.

Other critics of the EPA’s carbon agenda include Senate Democrats like West Virginia’s Jay Rockefeller and Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, neither of whom is otherwise known for business sympathies. But they understand that the EPA is about to unleash an economy-wide deluge of new rules and mandates that is already costly and destructive, and it has barely begun.

Right. The EPA has attempted to spin the expansion of its regulatory control over the economy as only a limited spate of regulation over heavy emitters such as refineries and coal-fired power plants. But, even the EPA concedes that those limits represent just the first stage of its control over carbon dioxide, the inevitable by-product of all human economic activity.