GOP lawmakers urge EU to scrap environmental rules that could cost US companies billions

Key Republicans in Congress are urging the European Union to reverse strict new environmental and human rights requirements that could cost US businesses billions of dollars more annually, The Post has learned.In a letter sent Thursday to the EU’s US ambassador, Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie of Kentucky, Financial Services Chair French Hill of Arkansas and Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio took aim at the EU’s new Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, or CSDDD.“The compliance requirements are onerous and extraterritorial and appear to be designed to deliberately harm American companies,” a copy of the letter obtained by The Post stated, ripping the new rules’ “invasive checks on a company’s supply chains.”The letter cited a recent study from the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank based in Washington, DC, that found the CSDDD would lead to “measurable initial compliance costs of between $637 billion and $1.093 trillion.”The study noted that these costs are comparable to what US firms currently pay in environmental and financial regulations combined.Annual recurring costs for US businesses would “range from $57 million to $8 billion,” which balloons to “recurring annual costs [that] range from $6 billion to $43 billion” if implicit costs are included, according to the same study.“The EU’s CSDDD is yet another example in a concerning pattern of anti-competitive and anti-American business regulations,” Guthrie said in a statement. “The Western world benefits from a strong Europe, but unfortunately, rather than pursuing freer markets and innovation, EU regulators continue to prefer heavy-handed government intervention,” Guthrie added. “This course has hindered the European economy for the past two decades, and now the EU seeks to apply that same model outside of its borders.”The House members are asking the EU to remove the CSDDD regulations for all non-EU businesses – saying they are currently...