WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Pat Roberts today helped introduce a bill to protect consumers from energy rate hikes due to burdensome and costly Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations that would attempt to dramatically cut carbon emissions of existing power plants.

“The Administration’s plans to reduce emissions will increase the cost of energy for consumers as existing power plants close or spend millions to comply with EPA’s proposed rules on emissions,” Roberts said. “The bill introduced today will protect consumers and states from paying the price of this regulatory agenda which in the end, will do very little to affect global temperatures.”

Senator Roberts is an original cosponsor of the Affordable Reliable Energy Now Act (ARENA) introduced by U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV).

The EPA’s proposed rules are part of the Administration’s attempts to go around the Congress and enact the President’s “Clean Power Plan” through executive order and executive action under the Clean Air Act.

The ARENA bill prevents states from being forced to adopt EPA’s plans under the Clean Air Act that would negatively affect economic growth, competitiveness and jobs in the state; negatively affect the reliability of the State’s electricity system; or negatively affect the State’s electricity ratepayers, including low-income ratepayers, by causing electricity rate increases. The bill would prevent the EPA from withholding highway funds from any states for noncompliance with the Clean Power Plan.

For more on the bill go here.

Estimates by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have found that these proposed rules, part of the President’s “Clean Power Plan,” will cost 224,000 U.S. jobs on average every year through 2030. These regulations would also increase electricity costs by $289 billion and lower households’ disposable income by $586 billion through that same period.

“Kansans are still struggling in the Obama economy and can’t afford this agenda-driven EPA overreach,” Roberts said. “Worse still, by the Obama Administration’s own admission, these regulations and any unilateral action by the United States would have a negligible impact on global temperatures. As long as large developing countries like Russia, China, India, and Brazil continue increasing their carbon emission on an annual basis, anything we do will be inconsequential. This proposal amounts to all pain and no gain.”

The bill is also co-sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), and Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), John Thune (R-S.D.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Dan Coats (R-Ind.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), David Perdue (R-Ga.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.).

Senator Roberts is an outspoken advocate for the elimination of ridiculous and burdensome regulations issued by the agenda-driven Obama Administration. From the School Lunch Program to health care, Roberts has fought executive overreach and won. Roberts is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry and is a senior member of the Senate Committee on Finance and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.