Republicans Say Green Groups Had Outsized Influence on EPA

(Bloomberg) — Republican lawmakers said the Natural

Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups had an

inappropriate influence on developing the Obama administration’s

regulation to curb carbon emissions from power plants.

The Environmental Protection Agency released the final rule

Monday, and it was hailed by NRDC and others as a major step

toward addressing the risks of global warming. The Senate

Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday released a

compilation of e-mails between the groups and administration

officials to show “collusion” in crafting the rule.

The e-mails “demonstrate how EPA and NRDC sought to push

the outer limits of EPA’s Clean Air Act authority and to develop

the analysis on which these highly controversial and legally

suspect rules are based,” according to the report released by

the committee’s Republican majority.

The NRDC released a proposal for how the EPA could tackle

carbon emissions from power plants in late 2012, after President

Barack Obama was re-elected. It was used as the basis for the

EPA’s carbon rule, according to the report.

“This is another attempt to stop us from standing up for

clean air, safe water and healthy communities — and strong

action to combat climate change,” Ed Chen, a spokesman for

NRDC, said in an e-mail. “We are doing nothing more than

petitioning our government — a constitutionally protected

right. That’s our job. The real wrong here is for anyone to

suggest we don’t have the right to do so.”

To contact the reporter on this story:

Mark Drajem in Washington at

mdrajem@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:

Jon Morgan at

jmorgan97@bloomberg.net

Steve Geimann, Elizabeth Wasserman

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