Source: PRESS RELEASE, 9/23/11

The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation today to protect jobs and provide certainty to America’s job creators. H.R. 2401, the Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act, or TRAIN Act, passed the House with strong bipartisan support by a vote of 249 to 169.

President Obama’s EPA has issued a wave of expensive new rules that will significantly impact jobs and our economy but there has been no effort at the federal level to understand the consequences of these rules taken together. The TRAIN Act, introduced by Reps. John Sullivan (R-OK) and Jim Matheson (D-UT), requires an interagency committee to analyze the cumulative economic impacts of certain EPA rules to better understand how these regulations affect jobs, energy prices, electric reliability and America’s overall global competitiveness.

The bill passed with an amendment offered by Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY) relating to two costly new rules affecting our nation’s power sector—the Utility MACT rule and the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule. EPA will be required to continue the current Clean Air Interstate program to achieve further emissions reductions, and to re-propose the Utility MACT rule to ensure it is achievable in the real world. This amendment provides much-needed regulatory relief to America’s power sector and will ensure American families can keep the lights on. These two rules have been estimated to cost $17.8 billion annually and 1.4 million job-years by 2020.

“H.R. 2401 is a commonsense approach to remove regulations that are prohibiting jobs from being created in America and stimulating the American economy,” said Whitfield.

“As House Republicans move forward with a bold agenda to grow our economy and put Americans back to work, one issue that must be addressed is overregulation by the federal government. I strongly believe the Obama Administration is moving too fast and showing little regard for the economic consequences of their energy and environmental policies,” said Sullivan. “I introduced this bipartisan legislation to protect American jobs—jobs that we are in danger of losing due to the Obama Administration's environmental regulatory agenda. The Train Act will force the EPA and other federal agencies to conduct an in-depth economic analysis of the rules and regulations so Congress and the American people can understand how the EPA’s regulatory train wreck will impact our economy.”