Sixteen states ask for Clean Power Plan rules to be suspended while they pursue legal options

Sixteen states have sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy requesting that the agency temporarily suspend Clean Power Plan rules while the states challenge their legality in court, Josh Lederman reports for The Associated Press. The 16 states are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The campaign is being led by West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, Carrie Hodousek reports for MetroNews in Charleston, W.Va. Morrisey wrote in a statement: “This request is a necessary first step and prerequisite to confronting this illegal power grab. These regulations, if allowed to proceed, will do serious harm to West Virginia and the U.S. economy, and that is why we are taking quick action to bring this process to a halt.”

The stay request states: “Absent an immediate stay, the Section 111(d) Rule will coerce the States to expend enormous public resources and to put aside sovereign priorities to prepare State Plans of unprecedented scope and complexity. In addition, the States’ citizens will be forced to pay higher energy bills as power plants shut down. In the end, the courts are likely to conclude that the Section 111(d) Rule is unlawful. At the very minimum, the States and their citizens should not be forced to suffer these serious harms until the courts have had an opportunity to review the Rule’s legality.”