Roll Call 741 (9-23-11) H.R. 2401 Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act of 2011. To require analyses of the cumulative and incremental impacts of certain rules and actions of the Environmental Protection Agency, and for other purposes.

Passed in House 249 to 169, 15 not voting. Died in Senate.

Bill Summary:  Nullifies the proposed EPA rule entitled “National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants From Coal- and Oil-Fired Electric Utility Steam Generating Units and Standards of Performance for Fossil-Fuel-Fired Electric Utility, Industrial-Commercial- Institutional, and Small Industrial-Commercial-Institutional Steam Generating Units” and any final rule that was based on such proposed rule and issued prior to this Act’s enactment.

H.R. 2401 also requires the President to establish the Committee for the Cumulative Analysis of Regulations that Impact Energy and Manufacturing in the United States to analyze and report on the cumulative and incremental impacts of covered rules and actions of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concerning air, waste, water, and climate change.

Analysis:  This bill is another step toward highlighting how the EPA is needlessly undermining cheap energy and America’s productivity in the name of phony environmentalism.   The measure attempts to limit some specific examples of EPA abuse in such a way as to achieve an easy consensus among those representatives least wedded to environmental extremism.

Unfortunately, H.R. 2401 is defensive at best. A real solution requires targeting the EPA itself and the forces which fastened it upon America.

Moreover, the roll call was largely a GOP posturing vote, as it clearly had no future in the Senate, nor on President Obama’s desk should it have gotten that far. Accordingly, we only score the Democrats on this roll call, giving credit to the handful that stood against the liberal grip on their party.

We have assigned (good vote) to the Ayes and (bad vote) to the Noes. (P = voted present; ? = not voting; blank = not listed on roll call.)