Bills written from model legislation by Koch group Americans for Prosperity (AFP) are being introduced in several states, reported ThinkProgress. These bills are designed to ban state funding intended to enforce “Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules and guidelines.”
Missouri state Rep. Tim Remole (R) introduced a bill last week that was modeled from the AFP’s Reliable, Affordable, and Safe Power (RASP) Act. The bill is actually designed to weaken the EPA’s effectiveness in enforcing state-level carbon emission regulations. In short, EPA funding on the state level will be limited.
The bill specifically targets funding of the EPA’s rules concerning power plant carbon emissions as they relate to climate change. Similar bills have been introduced in Florida (where state officials are unofficially banned from using the term “climate change”), Virginia, and South Carolina.
These bills insist that limits on carbon emissions “will not measurably alter any impacts of climate change” and will “effectively amount to a federal takeover of the electricity system of the United States.”
The Koch Brothers are “key funders” of the AFP and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative-slanted bill mill that mass-produces pro-corporate legislation. ALEC is also promoting these anti-EPA bills.
ThinkProgress reported that the RASP Act, the bill from which Remole’s legislation is modeled, asserts that the EPA “has no legal authority to regulate greenhouse gas rules because general air pollution from power plants is already regulated.” However, the Supreme Court has ruled otherwise.
ALEC and the AFP routinely campaign against pro-environmental laws and initiatives. The groups basically claim that any effort to improve the environment will be fruitless, cost jobs, and hurt the economy. These are just more lies manufactured by the Koch machine.
