Research

After a year of bailouts and government intervention, President Obama is once again using executive authority to step in and rescue another struggling group: congressional Democrats. The President’s Cap-And-Trade scheme has stalled in the Senate as Democrats have realized that the bill would be a disaster for American business. As the Tax Foundation points out, the legislation being proposed by Democrats could cost the economy close to 1 million jobs per year!

So to prevent members of his party from having to cast a vote on this harmful legislation, President Obama is circumventing Congress with harmful back-door EPA regulations on carbon emissions.  Yet while some Democratic lawmakers are breathing a sigh of relief having dodged the bullet of voting on the unpopular measure, it is the economy that will ultimately take the hit. Allowing the President to side-step Congress by empowering the EPA to impose harmful job-killing regulations will be good for their reelection hopes, but it will be “a nightmare scenario” for American businesses.

Fortunately, one member of Congress is taking action. During a floor statement today, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) introduced a joint resolution disapproving of Obama’s EPA’s recent endangerment finding and the ensuing regulations on businesses.  In her statement, Sen. Murkowski said:

The endangerment finding is aptly named. It endangers jobs, it endangers economic growth, and it endangers American competitiveness, while setting the stage for backdoor bureaucratic intrusion into the lives of Americans on an unprecedented scale.The administration introduced the endangerment finding the week before the president travelled to Copenhagen, instead of working with Congress to find a bipartisan solution to the nation's climate and energy challenges.

Sen. Murkowski’s statements bring to the fore what the Obama administration had hoped to hide behind closed doors.  President Obama and Senate Democrats have turned a deaf ear to the economic concerns of their constituencies. 

Rather than worrying about their next election and circumventing the legislative process, President Obama and congressional Democrats should work with Republicans to pass a responsible, comprehensive climate change bill.