Manchin helps lead Senate resolution against EPA's Clean Power Plan

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has been an outspoken critic of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, which has the potential to hurt U.S. coal manufacturers and energy industry players that rely on that coal, and has taken action to condemn the new rules.

The senator recently co-sponsored a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act  against the Clean Power Plan's carbon regulations on new power plants. Manchin especially was critical of the EPA’s requirements that new plants use carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology, which he said is currently out of reach technologically for the nation’s energy industry.

Manchin, who represents the nation’s second-largest coal-producing state, repeatedly has defended coal as a cheap, plentiful energy source. The EPA’s new rules regulate emissions from coal plants, which Manchin and many GOP members of Congress consider overreach.

“Never before has the federal government forced an industry to do something that is technologically impossible -- until now,” Manchin said, speaking on the Senate floor.

Manchin cited reports from Canada that the first commercial coal-fired power plant to use CCS technology hasn’t been able to run at full capacity thanks to design issues in the CCS system.

“These recent revelations prove that CCS is still technically unproven and still potentially damaging in a power-plant application,” Manchin said. “Therefore, it is foolish for this administration to require it now for new U.S. coal plants.”