Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell has made no secret of his plans, should he win re-election next month, and should he become Senate Majority Leader.
The latter will happen if McConnell defeats Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes and Republicans win a net of six Senate seats in November. McConnell has told audiences and reporters that, if he became Senate Majority Leader, he would seek to defeat President Obama’s legislative agenda by adding language to spending bills that would strip funding from projects the President supports.
In an interview with WKU Public Radio Wednesday, McConnell was asked specifically which programs he would seek to defund.
WKU Public Radio: What specific programs or initiatives would you seek to block if you were to become Senate Majority Leader?
Senator McConnell: Well, my first choice, obviously, is to see what the President is willing to do with us. We need to do comprehensive tax reform. It’s been 30 years since we scrubbed the code. The President says he wants to do trade agreements. That’s a big winner for Kentucky agriculture. So I think you would anticipate kind of a mix of things, hopefully working on things we can agree on together.
But there are some things we would differ on.
The initiatives that the President has carried out through the regulatory side have been quite burdensome to the economy. And we would indeed seek to rein in the regulators, and a good example of that is the war on coal, which has created a depression in eastern Kentucky [and across much of Appalachia].
Now, he’ll have the final word, and he can veto the bill. (Note: A presidential veto can be overturned with a 2/3rds majority vote).
You mentioned what you call—and what your Democratic opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes has called—the “war on coal.” Should the E.P.A. have any regulatory authority over emissions from coal-fired power plants? Where would you draw the line?
There have been regulations on coal plants for a long time. We’re not talking about no regulations at all. What we’re talking specifically about are two new regulations. One guarantees that there would never be another coal-fired plant built in America.
And the second one targets existing plants in such a way that they begin to be phased out. This is all in pursuit of global carbon emissions. Now, if you thought that was an important problem, it would have to be addressed on a global basis. I think it’s important to remember that the Indians and the Chinese are building coal plants, the Europeans are importing coal, and the Australians just repealed their carbon tax, which is their version of what the President is trying to do through E.P.A. here.
This particular crusade is going to have no impact on the problem, even if you believe that that’s a problem that ought to be addressed. And it has become a huge pain, not just in Kentucky, but in other states—particularly in the Midwest—that depend on coal-fired generation for lost-cost electricity.”