Top US coal company vows five lawsuits against climate rules

Murray Energy Corp. said it is filing five federal lawsuits to fight the Obama administration’s new climate rules for power plants, and it expects to win.

The company, which is the country’s largest privately held coal mining company, is filing a lawsuit against each of the three individual regulations the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will unveil Monday.

{mosads}The company will also file a lawsuit against the entire regulatory package and appeal a lawsuit it lost in June against one of the then-unfinished regulations.

“This illegal rule will adversely restructure the electric power system in America and will force every state to radically change their energy policies,” the company said in a Monday statement. “It will dramatically increase the cost of electricity for all Americans, with no environmental benefit whatsoever.”

Bob Murray, the company’s president, said the revised deadlines in the rule are not an improvement and only push back major cost increases.

“We have no choice but to challenge the Obama administration’s illegal actions in court, and we will prevail,” he said.

Murray is a frequent, vocal critic of President Obama and his environmental policies.

In a speech last month, Murray called Obama the “nation’s greatest destroyer” and said he is “intent on destroying coal and our country for their bizarre personal and political ends.”

The company has filed numerous lawsuits against Obama policies.

Last year, it sued to stop the proposed climate rule for existing power plants and led the numerous energy companies and states challenging it. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out the lawsuit in June, saying it was premature.

On Monday, Obama will announce finalized versions of that rule, along with a rule limiting carbon emissions from newly built power plants and a proposal to lay out a framework for states that do not voluntarily comply with the rule that covers existing plants.

Murray said that once those three rules are formally proposed in the Federal Register, it will file the new lawsuits and, along with several states, appeal the existing judgment.