Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt today is expected to sign a proposed rule to withdraw from the Clean Power Plan. In his statement yesterday Administrator Pruitt is quoted as saying:
“When you think about what that rule meant, it was about picking winners and losers. Regulatory power should not be used by any regulatory body to pick winners and losers,” he said at the event. “The past administration was using every bit of power and authority to use the EPA to pick winners and losers and how we generate electricity in this country. That’s wrong.”
Below is a statement from Frank Knapp Jr., President of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce and co-chair of the American Sustainable Business Council, both organizations support the Clean Power Plan.
“The United States has been picking winners and losers regarding energy production for over a century (i.e. the intangible drilling oil & gas deduction). According to a report by researchers at Oil Change International, the U.S. tax code provides over a $20 billion annual subsidy to the oil and coal industries from several provisions of the tax code. These permanent tax provisions are 7 times greater than tax breaks for renewable energy. Mr. Pruitt is being hypocritical is his justification for wanting to withdraw from the Clean Power Plan based on some aversion to picking winners and losers.
While using the tax code to promote the oil and coal industries served its purpose in years gone by to ensure that the US private sector was producing enough energy for the nation, times have changed. The energy future is renewables. That is why I led the American Sustainable Business Council effort to file an amicus brief on behalf of that organization and 23 other business organizations in support of the Clean Power Plan.”
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