Twenty-six states and state agencies signed onto a letter asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to repeal former President Barack Obama’s global warming regulation for power plants.
The coalition, led by West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, filed comments in support of the EPA repealing the Clean Power Plan (CPP) on the grounds it’s an “unlawful” federal power grab and violates the Clean Air Act.
“The Power Plan’s binding emission limits require States to shift electricity generation from coal-fired plants to natural gas-fired plants and renewable sources,” Morrisey’s coalition wrote in comments submitted to the EPA Wednesday.
“This federally imposed policy interferes with the States’ authority to manage the mix of energy generation within their own borders,” the states wrote.
The EPA proposed repealing the CPP in October, striking a major blow to Obama’s global warming legacy. The EPA finalized the CPP in 2015, which aimed to cut carbon dioxide emissions from power plants 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
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“We are committed to righting the wrongs of the Obama administration by cleaning the regulatory slate,” Administrator Scott Pruitt said in October. “Any replacement rule will be done carefully, properly, and with humility, by listening to all those affected by the rule.”
Repealing the CPP will save $33 billion in compliance costs, the EPA found. The agency re-analyzed the Obama administration’s cost-benefit report for the rule, changing how they calculated the benefits of fighting global warming and reducing air pollution.
Environmentalists were quick to threaten lawsuits to slow down the process. Activists pressured the Obama administration for years to regulate carbon dioxide from power plants — the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) reportedly wrote the “blueprint” of what eventually became the CPP.
However, the CPP never went into effect.
The Supreme Court issued a stay against the rule in early 2016 in response to a lawsuit brought by a coalition of states, energy companies, business groups and unions.
The EPA is currently taking public comments on its repeal plan, and the agency plans a series of public meetings on the matter. The EPA already held one public meeting on the CPP repeal in West Virginia.
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