House Republican seeks end to Biden chemical plant rule

By Kelsey Brugger | 05/29/2024 04:14 PM EDT

Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana is hoping to overturn the EPA emissions standards.

Rep. Clay Higgins, (R-La.)

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) on Capitol Hill in January. He is leading an effort to overturn a new EPA plan to cut emissions from chemical plants. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

A Louisiana Republican introduced legislation Wednesday that would kill a Biden rule targeting more than 200 industrial plants emitting potential carcinogens.

Rep. Clay Higgins — who represents the southwestern part of the state adjacent to the Texas border — introduced a Congressional Review Act resolution, H.J. Res. 161, that would overturn a Biden EPA rule that is projected to eventually cut emissions of harmful air pollutants by more than 6,200 tons a year. The resolution had no co-sponsors as of Wednesday afternoon.

Higgins has been an outspoken critic of President Joe Biden’s environmental and climate rules. In a separate letter he led Wednesday raising questions on climate envoy John Podesta’s meetings with Chinese officials, he decried the administration’s “radical Green New Deal policies,” which he said had “undermined American energy production and exacerbated our reliance on foreign nations for critical energy resources.”

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The new EPA regulations, which were released earlier this year, specifically target ethylene oxide and chloroprene. It also expanded EPA rules for “fenceline monitoring” to study airborne pollutants that waft into communities heavily burdened by industry. Current rules only have that requirement for benzene.

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