Supreme Court halts Obama’s clean power plan

The Clean Power Plan plans to limit carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector, with a goal of reducing emissions by 32% from 2005 levels by 2030.

Last summer the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandated that states reduce carbon emissions by one-third, with compliance plans due later this year.

“I think we will see a greater confidence within the coal community”, he said, “and among state legislatures and governors around the country that they don’t have to impose these costs on themselves”. In the past, some EPA regulations that have been overturned in the court system were not put on hold and their damage was already done while other states and groups were challenging their legality.

“States have every incentive to move ahead with this planning process and to continue to move ahead with advancing clean energy, and we’re fully confident that will continue while this legal process stays out”, she said.

The Supreme Court issued an order Tuesday saying the new guidelines must be suspended until the legal challenges are resolved.

Abby Foster, a spokesperson with the Pennsylvania Coal Alliance, says she wants the Wolf administration to hold off on coming up with a plan.

Politicians and climate activists in Europe, meanwhile, also spoke out in support of the president, and accused “vested interests” of uniting against the Clean Power Plan. They had sought a stay on implementation of the plan while their suit works its way through the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The White House, though, remained optimistic and said in a statement that it would “continue to take aggressive steps to make forward progress to reduce carbon emissions”. “Today’s Supreme Court ruling did not rule on the validity of the plan”. That suggests that the Supreme Court is sympathetic to arguments that the EPA overstepped its authority in crafting power plant regulations, he says.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said the Clean Power Plan violates Constitutional law, and their fight against it has nothing to do with climate change.