Michigan won’t finalize climate plan until court fight ends

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration won’t comply with President Obama’s climate rule for power plants until legal fights over it conclude.

The Michigan Agency for Energy (MAE) said Tuesday that, after reviewing last week’s Supreme Court-issued stay against the Clean Power Plan, it will “suspend activities to comply with the rule and its timeline for submissions.”

{mosads}The state will complete a climate-modeling project that it’s already paid for, the agency said, and “those findings will be helpful for other planning and compliance activities.”

Michigan was among 26 states that sued the Environmental Protection Agency over the Clean Power Plan. Unlike some of the states, though, Snyder, a Republican, initially said Michigan would move forward with a compliance plan. That position put him at odds with the state’s Republican Attorney General, Bill Schuette, who praised the stay last week.

“The Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency has once again been stopped from an attempt to push beyond its constitutional powers,” Schuette said after the Supreme Court announced its stay order for the power plant rule.

“The EPA continues to show that they don’t take the real world into account when they make sweeping rules that change daily life for average Americans.”

The Michigan Agency for Energy noted that, despite suspending its carbon rule compliance, state officials will push forward with a plan to close a slate of coal-fired power plants in the state by 2020. Snyder was also among 17 governors to launch Tuesday the “Governor’s Accord for a New Energy Future,” a push to clean up state energy and transportation sectors.  

“This partnership will help us further adapt and identify best practices as we work to make energy more affordable, reliable and environmentally protective,” he said in a statement.

This story was updated at 4:26 p.m.