Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) thinks that the US taking proactive steps to help curb climate change and clean up the environment are akin to the actions used by al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or Timothy McVeigh.
The GOP congressman, at an event at the Heritage Foundation on Monday, compared the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new regulations on power plant emissions to terrorism.
“You talk about terrorism; you can do it in a lot of different ways,” Kelly said. “But you terrorize the people who supply everything this country needs to be great, and you keep them on the sidelines? My goodness, what have we become?”
Kelly was asked to clarify what he meant, and said that he used the word “terrorism” broadly, according to E&E News.
“When a government can level on you taxes and regulations that makes [sic] it impossible for you to compete, then you’re going to stay on the sidelines,” he said.
The regulations that have Kelly so riled up are designed to cut carbon pollution by 30 percent over the next 16 years. The EPA is going to hold public hearings on its new climate plan, beginning today, in Atlanta, Denver, and Washington D.C., and a two-day hearing in Pittsburgh starts on July 31.
Analysts predict that the EPA’s plan could reduce coal use by almost 50 percent, while increasing power generated from renewable energy sources.
Kelly, of course, disagrees with these predictions. He is the author of the proposed Coal Country Protection Act (CCPA), which would block the EPA’s new carbon rule and any regulations that would limit carbon from power plants until certain criteria are met.
In a statement regarding the CCPA, which only has a projected two percent chance of being enacted, Kelly said the “sustainable, reliable, and affordable energy source that coal-fired power plants provide is critical to our national security and the global energy so badly needed by the world market.”
Naturally, there were no mentions of these coal-fire power plants’ damage to the environment, their role in climate change, or the numerous health problems working in, or even living near, coal mines can cause.
