CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey responded to a lawsuit filed against the Trump Administration's Affordable Clean Energy rule.
"My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are dead wrong in their interpretation of the Clean Air Act," Morrisey said Aug. 13. "The CAA was not written to compel one type of energy producer to cross-subsidize another. Neither it nor the Constitution allow the EPA to serve as a central energy planning authority."
Morrisey said West Virginia doesn't support what he calls a "power grab" lawsuit.
"West Virginia will fight this 22-state big government ‘power grab’ lawsuit and advance some of same arguments that helped our 27-state coalition obtain a stay of the so-called Clean Power Plan at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016," Morrisey said.
Morrisey said he believes the filings by New York Attorney General Letitia James will ultimately fail at the Supreme Court level.
James is leading a coalition of 22 states and seven local governments and announced a lawsuit Aug. 12 over ACE, which James calls the "Dirty Power" rule.
The ACE rule replaced the Clean Power Plan. James and the coalition argue that ACE rolls-back limits and will have virtually no impact on emissions, which will prolong the nation’s reliance on polluting, expensive coal power plants and obstructing progress of states toward clean, renewable, and affordable electricity generation.
"The science is indisputable; our climate is changing," James said. "Ice caps are melting. Sea levels are rising. Weather is becoming more and more extreme."
James said without a significant course correction, a climate disaster is in the future.
"Rather than staying the course with policies aimed at fixing the problem and protecting people’s health, safety, and the environment, the Trump Administration repealed the Clean Power Plan and replaced it with this ‘Dirty Power’ rule," James said. "My office, and this groundbreaking coalition of states and cities from across the nation will fight back against this unlawful, do-nothing rule in order to protect our future from catastrophic climate change."
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and New York was joined by attorneys general from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia, as well as the chief legal officers of Boulder, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia and South Miami.