Congress should rein in EPA overreach to protect affordable and reliable energy

At a time when Americans are facing higher utility bills and the grid is under growing strain, getting energy policy right is crucial. The End EPA Abuse Act, introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from imposing rules that undermine reliability, raise costs, and restrict consumer choice while still protecting the environment.

Over the past decade, the EPA has increasingly used the Clean Air Act not just to regulate pollution, but to reshape the nation’s energy system. Consider the Obama-era Clean Power Plan’s “generation shifting” approach.

Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA determined that the “best system of emission reduction” required not just efficiency improvements at individual plants, but changes across the entire power sector. In practice, that meant pushing utilities to shift electricity production away from coal and toward “green” sources such as wind and solar. The Supreme Court ultimately rejected that theory of authority in West Virginia v. EPA, holding that Congress had not authorized the agency to restructure the nation’s electricity mix.

Further, the EPA’s original 2024 tailpipe emissions rule for model years 2027 through 2032 set emissions targets so stringent that conventional gasoline vehicles cannot meet them at scale. While this rule is currently being reevaluated, automakers faced a forcible and dramatic increase in electric vehicle production to comply with the proposed rule.

EPA’s own projections indicated that electric vehicles would need to account for roughly 30 to 56 percent of new vehicle sales by the early 2030s, with earlier proposals suggesting even higher levels. While framed as “technology........

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