{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.enzi.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ContentRecord_id=14ddeb20-d35c-423a-bd34-c71d39c2be85", "Enzi, Barrasso join call for 60-Day extension for public comment on EPA greenhouse gas rule", "2014-09-11", "2014", "2014-09", "Republican", "House", "WY", "Michael Enzi", "E000285", "www.enzi.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "U.S. Senators Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, both R-Wyo., joined a bipartisan group of 53 senators this week in calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy to provide a 60-day extension for the public comment period on EPA\u2019s proposed rule to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. The effort is led by Senators Deb Fischer, R-Neb., and Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D.\r\nThe senators expressed that because the proposal is incredibly complex and broad in scope and would impact electric generation, use, and costs throughout the country, an additional 60 days is needed to provide more time for all stakeholders to fully review it and offer comments.\r\nIn their letter to the EPA, the senators wrote, \u201cThis extension is critical to ensure that state regulatory agencies and other stakeholders have adequate time to fully analyze and comment on the proposal. It is also important to note that the challenge is not only one of commenting on the complexity and sweeping scope of the rule, but also providing an opportunity to digest more than 600 supporting documents released by EPA in support of this proposal.\u201d\r\nIn May, Enzi and Barrasso joined a similar effort by Fischer and Heitkamp to request the EPA grant at least 120 days for public comment on its new proposal on existing power plants. While the 120-day public comment period was granted, the senators heard immediately from a variety of parties in their states, including utilities, state regulators, regional generation and transmission organizations, and many more. These parties made it known that the rule is more difficult to analyze and assess than they had initially expected. Additionally, some of the issues posed by the new rule require discussions and collaboration with a variety of state, regional, and national officials to provide accurate and complete comments on the feasibility of the rule and options.\r\nThe senators believe that the level of complexity of the proposal, volume of technical documents released, amount of coordination required, and magnitude of energy impacts of the rule warrant a 60-day extension of the public comment period.\r\nFull text of the senators\u2019 letter is below.\r\n_____________________________________\r\nThe Honorable Gina McCarthy\r\nAdministrator\r\nEnvironmental Protection Agency\r\nU.S. EPA Headquarters \u2013 William J. Clinton Building\r\n1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW\r\nWashington, DC 20460\r\n\u00a0\r\nDear Administrator McCarthy,\r\nWe are writing to request that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provide a 60 day extension of the comment period for the \u201cCarbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources:\u00a0 Electric Generating Units.\u201d\u00a0 While we appreciate EPA granting an initial 120 day comment period, the complexity and magnitude of the proposed rule necessitates an extension. This extension is critical to ensure that state regulatory agencies and other stakeholders have adequate time to fully analyze and comment on the proposal. It is also important to note that the challenge is not only one of commenting on the complexity and sweeping scope of the rule, but also providing an opportunity to digest more than 600 supporting documents released by EPA in support of this proposal.\r\nThe proposed rule regulates or affects the generation, transmission, and use of electricity in every corner of this country.\u00a0 States and stakeholders must have time to fully analyze and assess the sweeping impacts that the proposal will have on our nation\u2019s energy system, including dispatch of generation and end-use energy efficiency. In light of the broad energy impacts of the proposed rule, state environmental agencies must coordinate their comments across multiple state agencies and stakeholders, including public utility commissions, regional transmission organizations, and transmission and reliability experts, just to name a few.\u00a0\u00a0 The proposed rule requires a thorough evaluation of intra- and inter-state, regional, and in some cases international energy generation and transmission so that states and utilities can provide the most detailed assessments on how to meet the targets while maintaining reliability in the grid.\u00a0\u00a0 This level of coordination to comment on an EPA rule is unprecedented, extraordinary, and extremely time consuming.\r\nIt is also important to note that the proposed rule imposes a heavy burden on the states during the rulemaking process.\u00a0 If the states want to adjust their statewide emission rate target assigned to them by EPA, they must provide their supporting documentation for the adjustment during the comment period.\u00a0 The EPA proposal provides no mechanism for adjusting the state emission rate targets once they are adopted based on the four building blocks.\u00a0 So the states need enough time to digest the rule, fully understand it, and then collect the data and justification on why their specific target may need to be adjusted, and why the assumptions of the building blocks may not apply to their states.\u00a0 This cannot be adequately accomplished in only 120 days.\r\nThank you for your consideration of this request.\r\n# # #", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.enzi.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ContentRecord_id=14ddeb20-d35c-423a-bd34-c71d39c2be85"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7703471928834915, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}