WASHINGTON, DC – In remarks yesterday morning to a breakfast meeting of The Ripon Society, U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) praised the recent decision by the Supreme Court to block the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan, saying “before we move forward on these enormous regulations, we should consider the legality of the President’s overreach.”
“The Supreme Court decision that came down a day and a half ago was a real eye opener to me,” the West Virginia lawmaker stated. “I actually passed a bill out of the Environment & Public Works Committee called the ARENA Act. It has the very issue in it that the Supreme Court I think is trying to address – and that is before we move forward on these enormous regulations where people are making huge economic decisions, we should consider the legality of the President’s overreach.
“In the MATS Rule, for example, a lot of our utilities made economic decisions that caused job losses and the closing of power plants. And then it came back, three years later, that the Supreme Court said the administration overreached. Unfortunately, by that time, the decisions had been made and the jobs had been lost. So hopefully this decision will help with the Clean Power Plan. It will be interesting to see what the President does with his international agreement and how he’s going to rationalize this to the rest of the world. ‘Well, I really don’t have a plan now, because the Supreme Court is basically saying it could possibly be unconstitutional.’ So we’re going to watch that.
“We did pass a bill under the Congressional Review Act, which the president did veto, that turned back this rule. So we’ve had a lot of action on this issue, because it’s really devastating our state. We have the highest unemployment. We have literally thousands of people losing their jobs – over 10,000 miners in the last several years, two hundred people last week, rail companies are cutting back. Our state budget is $355 million in the hole. We’re cutting education. It’s a dire situation and it’s really hard to watch. I think we can do things in a better way, and that’s what I’m fighting for.”
Capito is in her first term in the Senate, after serving seven terms in the U.S. House. Elected in 2014, she is a member of the Senate Appropriations, Energy and Natural Resources, Rules, and Environment & Public Works Committees, where she has further established the reputation she built on the other side of the Capitol as a common sense conservative who stands up for the people of her home state.
In her remarks to The Ripon Society yesterday morning, she looked back on her first year in the Senate and some of the key goals that were achieved.
“We did a lot of good things,” Capito observed. “We got the ‘doc fix’ done, which is something that’s plagued us ever since I’ve been in Congress. We were able to reach a budget resolution. We passed a transportation bill for five years, which is an achievement that I think is going to have a great impact on all our states. We passed the North Korea sanctions bill just yesterday, and I think it was unanimous. So we are moving along, and I think we’ve been able to overcome some of the dysfunction that’s occurred over the last several years. And I’m pleased to see that.”
Capito, who is the first woman to serve in the Senate from the State of West Virginia, also discussed another bit of trivia related to her election in 2014 – namely, that she is only the third Republican woman to serve in both houses of Congress, with the other two being Margaret Chase Smith and Olympia Snowe.
“That’s a pretty exclusive club,” she said. “To be one of three Republican women in the history of our country to have served in both houses. To be the first woman elected to the Senate from my state, which I’m extremely proud of because there are still 24 states that haven’t elected a woman. To be the 45th woman Senator ever in the history of our country. That’s not so good, but we’re getting better. There are 20 now – the most there have ever been.”
Capito concluded her remarks on a lighthearted note – by talking about her election to the Senate after serving in the House, and how, in some respects, it brought back memories of her high school and junior high years.
“I liken going from the House to the Senate this way,” she stated. “It’s like going from junior high to high school. In junior high, you don’t want to go to high school, because you’ve got all your friends, you know how to get around the building, and you know the teachers. It’s just so great in junior high, and things are so comfortable by the time you get to the 8th or 9th grade. And you look over at the high school, and it’s so intimidating. And then the first day you get to high school, you look over at your junior high and say, ‘See ya!’ That’s what it’s like to be in the United States Senate.”
To view Senator Capito’s remarks to The Ripon Society yesterday morning, please click on the link below:
The Ripon Society is a public policy organization that was founded in 1962 and takes its name from the town where the Republican Party was born in 1854 – Ripon, Wisconsin. One of the main goals of The Ripon Society is to promote the ideas and principles that have made America great and contributed to the GOP’s success. These ideas include keeping our nation secure, keeping taxes low and having a federal government that is smaller, smarter and more accountable to the people.