Speaker John A. Boehner had a one-word description for President Barack Obama’s new proposal to cut power plant carbon emissions by 30 percent over the next 15 years: “Nuts.”  

“The president’s plan is nuts,” Boehner said in a Monday release. “There’s really no more succinct way to describe it.  

“Americans are still asking ‘where are the jobs?’ and here he is proposing rules to ship jobs overseas for years to come,” Boehner continued. “Americans are already paying more for everything and here he is condemning them to higher bills and lower incomes long after he leaves office.”  

Boehner’s comments came in response to a draft rule released by the EPA Monday that would cut, as measured against 2005 levels, 30 percent of carbon dioxide emissions nationwide by 2030, and 25 percent by 2020. Under the proposed rule, each state would have an individual target.  

Boehner said that “in many ways,” the proposed rule is worse than the cap-and-trade plan the president floated five years ago.  

That plan was roundly rejected by the American people and, in turn, by Congress in 2010. “While the president may have kept his promise to make prices ‘skyrocket,’ it doesn’t have to be inevitable,” Boehner said, referring to a quote that then-presidential candidate Obama made in a 2008 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle that under his energy plan, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”  

Boehner said the House had already passed legislation to prevent such EPA rules from taking effect without the approval of the House.  

“The question now is: Will Senate Democrats listen to the American people and stop this disaster or will they back the president all the way?” Boehner asked.