CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have joined 25 other states asking a federal appeals court to stay the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Clean Power Plan.”
The response comes two months after many of those same states sued the EPA, arguing the Power Plan drastically reshuffles the nation’s energy portfolio and does so without congressional authority.
Morrisey's office says the bipartisan multi-state coalition believes the harm of the rule is irreversible and occurring now. They say the plan will negatively impact states and business, and cause the unnecessary expenditure of taxpayer resources – all for a rule likely to be struck down as illegal.
“This has to stop,” Morrisey said in a press release. “We urge the court to take quick action and stop the continued implementation of this rule until the court has adequate time to hear our evidence and has an opportunity to decide this case on the merits.”
Morrisey and the others say the plan exceeds the EPA’s authority by double regulating coal-fired power plants and by forcing states to fundamentally alter their energy portfolios and shift away from coal-fired generation.
They say the EPA mandates are already forcing states on both sides of the issue to change laws and accommodate the rule’s goals.
Texas and West Virginia filed suit against the Obama administration on Oct. 23, the day the rule was published by the EPA. The Dec. 23 brief was a response to EPA arguments filed with the court on Dec. 3.
Besides West Virginia and Texas, the other states are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming as well as the Departments of Environmental Quality in Mississippi and North Carolina.