On August. 3, President Barack Obama and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants.
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The emergency petition is unusual because the 15 attorneys general have not yet filed suit against the EPA on the legality issue.
Morrisey wants to ensure “that no more taxpayer money or resources are wastefully spent” in attempting to comply with these “unlawful” regulations, which “we believe will ultimately be thrown out in court”.
“This rule is the most far-reaching energy regulation in the nation’s history, and the EPA simply does not have the legal authority to carry it out”, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said in a statement Thursday. “The AGs’ breathless claims of immediate harm have no substance”. Regardless of the date of formal publication, the states already have firm deadlines to submit initial and final compliance plans under the rule. The EPA responded saying it would take the request “under consideration”, but the agency has yet to act on that request.
The judges explained in June that the AGs will get their day in court under the Clean Air Act if they just follow the rules. By 2030, IER estimates 14,000 more people will die from reduced incomes than will be saved by the EPA’s rules. The court filing states “specifically, EPA erroneously concluded that the following State’s EPA-approved State Implementation Plans are “substantially inadequate” with respect to periods of startup, shutdown and malfunction and must be revised”.
Minnesota U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison and state Rep. Paul Thissen, writing in the Star Tribune, note Minnesota has benefited from clean energy laws implemented by former Gov. Tim Pawlenty in 2007, which required utilities to provide 25 percent of their electricity from renewable energy by 2025 – with every provider on track to meet its goals.
“They have tried to set up dis-incentives for natural gas production, and move away from gas and to a complete “decarbonization” of the power system”, he said. Anything that makes energy more expensive and less dependable should be viewed with disdain. Ohio will ask for that extension, he said. The regulations seemed to accomplish little in the way of making any significant change in global emissions while simultaneously crippling the oil and gas industry and floating more “green energy” plans which weren’t pulling their own weight on the energy grid yet.
He said his office will begin meeting with utilities, other industries and environment groups in the fall, probably in October, to start on a preliminary plan. In other words, we are already halfway to the EPA’s goal seven years before its rules take full effect, and before numerous coal plant closings that are scheduled to happen over the next decade, thanks to the Sierra Club and others. A plan that requires us to change our source of power so drastically and so quickly will be devastating to our economy. “But before everyone sits down, we should read the plan”.
While some concessions were made to critics, the final rules actually increase the carbon cuts demanded from states and will have long-lasting impacts on the way power is produced. They argue the EPA can limit pollution from individual power plants under the Clean Air Act, but not clear Carbon dioxide from the skies over large areas.
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The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said those same emissions that the Clean Power Plan is trying to diminish hit a 27-year low in April (subscription).
