24 states line up to block Obama’s Clean Power Plan

The plan is aimed at reducing greenhouse gases that most, but not all, scientists say contribute to climate change. West Virginia is heading the group of states, which also includes Virginia, Texas, Alabama and New Jersey. The regulations could mean a few coal-fired power plants will have to shut down in order to meet the limits. With the Clean Power Plan’s publication in the Federal Register, groups have two months to file legal challenges.

“Time and again, we’ve seen big polluters and their allies attack the lifesaving protections that let our loved ones breathe easier and keep our clean energy economy thriving, and this challenge to the Clean Power Plan is no different”, Hitt said in a statement.

The EPA insists that the new rules are flexible enough to allow each state to figure out their own ways to achieve the mandates, but detractors say that the rules will devastate jobs, arbitrarily close power plants, and make energy costs skyrocket.

But well before next September when Wisconsin and other states would have to file an implementation plan or request a two-year extension, the 24-state lawsuit hopes to stop the rule.

A legislative committee voted down a bill that would’ve required legislative approval or a final court decision before Wyoming could implement the Clean Power Plan.

Announced by Obama and the EPA on August 3, the Clean Power Plan is one of several conservation measures unveiled by the administration that faced immediate legal opposition.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott called the EPA’s action a “power grab” “disguised as a ‘Clean Power Plan'”.

The states claim that Section 111(d) rule exceeds EPA’s authority by unlawfully forcing states to fundamentally alter state resource-planning and energy policy by shifting from coal-fired generation to other sources of power generation, with a significant emphasis on renewable sources. This draconian requirement will carry huge economic costs; National Economic Research Associates estimated that an earlier version of the regulation, which suggested a lower level of carbon cuts, impose compliance costs of up to $479 billion by 2030, also prompting double-digit electricity rate hikes in all but seven states.

“The country needs to reduce [carbon dioxide] from existing power plants which generate 40 percent of America’s CO2”, said a joint statement by William K. Reilly, the EPA chief during the George H.W. Bush administration, and William D. Ruckelshaus, who led the agency in the administrations of Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

“A dirty-energy alliance of coal companies, old-school utilities and their allies will rush to the courthouse with lawsuits stoked with hot rhetoric about its supposedly dire impacts”, Doniger said.

Scientific American reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will challenge the EPA rules next week, hosting votes that are “calculated to embarrass” the White House before climate talks in Paris.

The proposal before the interim committee would have blocked the state from implementing the regulations unless the Legislature passed a law authorizing state agencies to move forward with them or if a federal court issued a final judgment upholding the legality of the Clean Power Plan.