WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claims to have sweeping power to enact such regulations based on a rarely-used provision of the Clean Air Act, but McConnell argued that such legal authority did not exist.
"The Obama Administration recently published massive energy regulations that won’t do a thing to meaningfully affect global carbon levels. But it will ship more middle class jobs overseas," the release read on Tuesday.
Obama introduced the Clean Power Plan in August 2015 to curb power plant carbon emissions by 32 percent over the next 15 years.
"We’ve filed bipartisan measures that would allow Congress to overturn these two-pronged regressive regulations," McConnell said in the release.
McConnell argued the Clean Power Plan will punish the working poor in the United States.
"It will make it even harder for coal families in states like Kentucky to put food on the table. Senators in both parties are saying enough is enough."
The Senate Majority Leader represents Kentucky, a state with one of the largest coal mining industries in the United States.
On October 22, West Virginia and 22 other US states launched a legal action against the EPA seeking to block the Clean Power Plan.
