National Mining Association (NMA) President and CEO Hal Quinn today issued this statement following reports of the administration’s plans to repeal the Clean Power Plan:

“As reported, Administrator Pruitt will signal a decisive break with past policies that have used regulation of doubtful legality to circumvent the will of Congress, usurp States’ authority and raise costs on American consumers.

“Repealing this Obama-era rule would close a chapter of regulatory overreach that set standards without regard to the steep costs or availability of technology necessary to meet them. The Clean Power Plan represented an unlawful attempt to transform the nation’s power grid. It would have destroyed additional baseload power assets, leaving our economy more vulnerable to reliability concerns and higher costs with trivial environmental benefits.

“Unplugging the plan would spare further loss of high-wage employment. By saving an estimated 240 million tons of annual coal production, the administrator’s action helps to safeguard more than 27,000 mining jobs and almost 100,000 additional jobs throughout the supply chain.

“A far better approach to achieving environmental improvement will rely on sound legal rules and proven technologies that can sustain the impressive reductions in emissions achieved over the past decades. Such an approach consistent with EPA’s basic mission will restore the important balance between costs and benefits that have been missing from federal regulatory policies.”

See the release here.