Indiana and 23 other states immediately filed suit challenging the regulation. The group also filed a petition to stay the rule during the pendency of the litigation.
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When the draft plan was announced in 2013, Obama famously said: “In America, we don’t have to choose between the health of our economy and the health of our children”, but that hasn’t stopped critics from claiming the opposite. “It is time for the courts to hold EPA accountable to the law and restore power to the American people”. Publication launched a 60-day period to legally challenge the rule in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The various lawsuits will likely be consolidated.
So far, that’s been the case. It calls for a 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions from USA power plants by 2030. No amount of money or power will ever appease the EPA bureaucracy.
“The Rule’s restructuring of the electric sector is not only wholly untethered from the CAA, but is an assertion of authority over energy policy that is greater than what Congress has given to any federal agency, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission”, the request said, adding that FERC and the states have been sidelined while EPA acts as an “energy czar”.
Back in 2007, New Jersey joined what proved to be the winning side of a lawsuit that forced the federal Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the greenhouse-gas emissions that contribute to climate change. “The EPA is stretching way beyond its legal bounds and if they are successful, they are going to be able to manage states’ electricity portfolios”, said Morrisey.
According to the Obama administration and environmental groups, the rules were needed to cut carbon emissions while curbing the worst impacts of climate change and sea-level rise. EPA has found that system to be a full-grid approach, they say. And as StateImpact has reported, Oklahoma’s largest utility companies are already on their way to compliance with the Clean Power Plan, because of earlier EPA rules that are forcing them to move away from coal.
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If New Jersey fails to comply with the Clean Power Plan, it also could lead the federal agency – rather than the state – to decide how to meet the goals of the program. “Constitutional arguments against the plan are last-ditch attempts to block the transition to clean energy that is already underway”.
