Despite US setback, Virginia moving forward on ‘Clean Power’

Coal industry representatives in IN, one of the nation’s top coal-producing states, say the Supreme Court’s stay of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan has little immediate effect on the state.

President Obama still believes the rule his administration put forward to regulate coal emissions from power plants has a chance for survival, despite the Supreme Court’s unprecedented decision to halt its implementation until its legal challenges are settled.

“The Clean Power Plan is critical to our future and offers a genuine opportunity to reduce our carbon emissions, to protect the public, and take needed action on climate change”. Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement that the Obama administration “disagrees” with the Supreme Court’s action. In fact, the case involved a Utah power plant operated by Deseret Power.

The states claim that the Obama administration seeks via the emissions controls to shut down as many as 50 coal-fired power plants.

Colorado was one of about two dozen states that requested the “stay”, or pause, from the U.S. Supreme Court in the first place.

Now the EPA will not impose the September 2016 deadline on states.

“Despite these investments the Clean Power Plan pushes for additional, unrealistic emission reductions”. Luke Popovich is with the American Mining Association, a plaintiff in a lawsuit to stop the Clean Power Plan. Hickenlooper believes he should have the authority in deciding whether the state sues over the Clean Power Plan. Rather, it’s about protecting coal-mining jobs already endangered by competition from plentiful stores of cheap natural gas unleashed by the shale fracking boom.

Kurt Ebersbach, an attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, said the Supreme Court stepping in was unexpected, but it won’t completely derail general trends away from coal and towards renewable energy. “As a not for profit electric cooperative, obviously if there is an additional cost, that is a burden we do not want to put on the consumers unless we absolutely have to”, Soderberg says. However, this is another good sign that President Obama is running into five Justices who do not appreciate his expansion of presidential powers. That lower court is not likely to issue a ruling on the legality of the plan until months after it hears oral arguments begin on June 2.