House GOP leaders outline sweeping attack on EPA rules

House GOP leadership on Monday outlined plans to delay or kill a suite of environmental rules in coming months, signaling an expansion of legislative and political attacks against regulations that business groups call burdensome.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), in a memo to GOP members, outlined a legislative schedule for thwarting “job-destroying” regulations that includes a number of Environmental Protection Agency rules.

Cantor plans a vote this winter to block EPA’s decision to toughen Bush-era smog standards, a rule that EPA plans to finalize soon after repeated delays. Major industry groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute have appealed directly to the White House to scuttle the rules.

Legislation targeting other rules will come to the floor even sooner, Cantor’s memo states.

He expects to bring up legislation the week of Sept. 19 that requires new interagency analysis of the cumulative effects of many EPA rules.

The measure will delay implementation of proposed power-plant rules targeting air toxics like mercury, and final rules for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, until the “full impact of the Obama Administration’s regulatory agenda has been studied,” Cantor’s memo states.

Several other rules will be targeted in October and the following months, the memo states. Among them:

The week of Oct. 3 will bring floor action on legislation to delay and alter pending EPA rules to curb air toxics from industrial boilers, while the winter will bring a bill to thwart EPA’s planned greenhouse gas standards.

The Hill's Erik Wasson has more on Cantor's fall agenda, which also targets certain labor and healthcare rules, and proposes a major tax cut for businesses. He reports:

Cantor’s proposals will face an uphill battle in becoming law, but could make their way into a package produced by the deficit “supercommittee” of 12 lawmakers charged with recommending $1.5 trillion in deficit-cuts by late November. Democrats want that package to focus on economic stimulus to create jobs.

—This post was updated at 11:05 a.m.