Reid plans to allow vote on GOP amendment to block EPA climate rules

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday that he plans to allow a floor vote on a primarily GOP bill that would strip the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, refineries and other sources.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the minority leader, is trying to attach the plan to small-business legislation that’s currently on the Senate floor.

Reid attacked the block-EPA plan but said he would allow the amendment to come up for a vote.

“The Senate [small-business] bill creates jobs, and I don’t know why they would want to divert attention from that,” Reid told reporters in the Capitol. “We will debate it, we will have a vote on it in due time. It is something that I don’t favor, I think his amendment is very, very misguided.”

McConnell's amendment language mirrors a bill introduced in the Senate by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and in the House by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.).

Inhofe’s bill has so far won the support of one Senate Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), and 42 Republicans. The measure faces high hurdles in the Senate, but a vote would nonetheless force some politically vulnerable Democrats into weighing in.

McConnell said regulations that EPA has just begun to phase in would "destroy jobs at a time when Americans need them most."

The House version of the bill is being considered by the House Energy and Commerce Committee Tuesday. Republicans are expected to approve the legislation and a vote is expected on the House floor before Easter.

The White House has threatened to veto bills that strip EPA's power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

—This post was updated at 2:55 p.m. and 3:03 p.m.