Senator Steve Daines today took Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (EPA) Gina McCarthy to task on the EPA’s Power Plan all-fronts assault on affordable energy and good-paying union and tribal jobs.

During today’s Senate Committee on Appropriations Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Daines challenged McCarthy to quantify the impacts of the anti-energy regulations on Montana. McCarthy could not give Daines a straight answer.

“If the impact on temperature is virtually negligible, what impact are we trying to drive here?” Daines pressed McCarthy.

“We are trying to get domestic and international agreements which this Clean Power Plan has helped to initiate to get worldwide response to what is essentially a worldwide problem,” McCarthy responded.

“By killing the coal industry, which is what your regulations are doing, they are killing coal-fired plants,” Daines fired back. “The regulations are going to result in the shut down of Colstrip units 1, 2, 3 and 4. Over 50 percent of the electricity generated in Montana is from coal-fired plants. You are going to shut them all down with these regulations.”

“We need to help China continue become better at managing their environment – but to completely step away from the coal fired business and to take American innovation out of the equation – to let America lead in clean coal technology versus ceding this to the Chinese,” Daines continued. “I think this is a grave strategic mistake as it relates to overall stewardship of the planet.”

McCarthy did not dispute that the EPA Power Plan will have a negligible impact on global temperature.

Daines has long fought to protect Montana jobs and access affordable energy from the Obama administration’s overreach. He recently held a two and half day Energy Summit in Billings, Montana following a 10-city energy tour across the state.

Daines is an original cosponsor of two bipartisan Congressional Review Act resolutions of disapproval that will block the Obama administration’s regulations on new and existing coal-fired power plants.

Daines is also an original cosponsor of the Affordable Reliable Energy Now Act (ARENA), which holds the EPA accountable and protects states’ rights by requiring the EPA to demonstrate how their proposed regulations could impact each state.

See the press release here.