©2025 League of Conservation Voters
Issues
Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) sponsored an amendment to H.R. 5376, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022, that would strike a provision in the IRA that provides funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under its existing Clean Air Act authority. This funding would not have added any new regulatory authority to the EPA, and it complied with the Supreme Court’s repeated rulings – including in their 2022 West Virginia v. EPA decision – that greenhouse gasses are air pollutants that may be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The EPA is in the process of developing a series of critical greenhouse gas, environmental, and public health regulations, and this funding would aid this critical work. On August 7, the Senate rejected the Capito amendment by a vote of 50-50 (Senate roll call vote 293). NO IS THE PRO-ENVIRONMENT VOTE. Subsequent, but unrelated to this failed vote, the provision to provide additional EPA funding was stricken via a budgetary point of order due to the rules governing budget reconciliation.
©2025 League of Conservation Voters