At Least Four States Are Pushing Koch-Backed Legislation to Ban Funding EPA’s Climate Rule

Lawmakers from at least four states have introduced model legislation from the right-wing group Americans for Prosperity (AFP) seeking to prohibit state funding for the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to fight climate change.

On Thursday, Missouri state lawmaker Tim Remole introduced a resolution mimicking the text of AFP’s Reliable, Affordable and Safe Power (RASP) Act.  Remole’s resolution “seeks to prohibit state agencies from using state money to implement EPA rules and guidelines,” specifically the EPA’s efforts to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

Nearly identical resolutions have also been introduced in Florida, Virginia, and South Carolina in 2015.  Each one says the proposed limits on carbon emissions from power plants “will not measurably alter any impacts of climate change,” “conflicts with a literal reading of the law,” and would “effectively amount to a federal takeover of the electricity system of the United States.”

The sentiment in these resolutions would have to be included in actual bills to become a real law.  But if they do pass, it would signify that the states have the momentum to move similarly-written bills through their Legislatures.

The RASP Act is a piece of model legislation written by AFP, a free-market group famously backed by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.  AFP announced in December that it would “lead a large coalition of organizations” to push the RASP Act in states — organizations which include the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, right-wing think tank Heritage Action for America, and the Koch-backed American Energy Alliance. The model legislation is also being pushed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a free-market lobbying group.

All four of those groups are active in promoting anti-climate and anti-clean energy policies. AFP and ALEC do so particularly through model legislation, which provides states with templates for bills and resoltuions.  ALEC, for example, encourages state legislatures to limit renewable energy, oppose the EPA, and teach climate denial in schools.  AFP has also led campaigns to try to get states to repeal their renewable energy standards, which require a certain amount of clean energy to be used in a specific state.

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