Republican-led states are asking a court to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new rule requiring coal and new gas plants to capture their planet-warming emissions.
The 25 states, led by West Virginia and Indiana, filed a legal challenge to the rule. The filing itself does not lay out their arguments, but a press release from West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R) argued that the rule would unfairly force coal plants to close.
Morrisey invoked a 2022 Supreme Court decision that narrowed the EPA’s ability to regulate power plants, which said that the agency could still impose requirements at the power plant level but could not force power providers to switch to entirely new power sources.
“The EPA continues to not fully understand the direction from the Supreme Court—unelected bureaucrats continue their pursuit to legislate rather than rely on elected members of Congress for guidance,” Morrisey said in a written statement.
“This green new deal agenda the Biden administration continues to force onto the people is setting up the plants to fail and therefore shutter, altering the nation’s already stretched grid,” he added.
The EPA’s power plant rule requires existing coal plants and new gas plants to install technology that prevents 90 percent of their emissions. It does not explicitly mandate a shift away from either power source, but it is expected to speed up the closure of coal plants in favor of gas or renewables.
An EPA spokesperson declined to comment, saying that the agency does not talk about pending litigation.
The other states that signed onto the lawsuit are: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.