WASHINGTON – West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey calls an appeal he’s leading against the Environmental Protection Agency before the U.S. Supreme Court “one of the most consequential cases our state has seen in decades.”
Morrisey discussed the action during a December 20 press conference. The Supreme Court agreed to consider the challenge from a 19-state coalition led by Morrisey last week. Oral arguments are scheduled for February 28.
Also, four of five West Virginia’s members of Congress as well several West Virginia-based groups announced they have signed amicus briefs in the case.
At the heart of the case is a lower federal appeals court ruling would give the EPA “virtually unlimited authority to regulate wide swaths of everyday life.”
“Our case is one of the most important cases before the Supreme Court this session and the outcome would have a ripple effect across the nation and hit West Virginia particularly hard,” Morrisey said. “If West Virginia prevails in our case, Congress will decide important questions related to our economy, the power grid, climate change, and more — just as the Constitution intended it to do.
“If not, then EPA can arbitrarily implement regulations that increase utility bills, create job losses, close down coal plants and much worse.”
Morrisey says the decision earlier this year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit endorsed rules that would devastate coal mining, increase consumers’ energy costs and eliminate countless jobs.
The coalition says the lower court erred by reading a narrow provision of federal law as granting EPA broad authority to unilaterally decarbonize virtually any sector of the economy, including factories and power plants.
The coalition argues that this is such a substantially important question that an administrative agency such as EPA cannot decide it unless Congress clearly says it can. In addition, it argues that Congress must speak in even plainer terms before an agency can be allowed to upset the balance of power between the federal government and the states.
“The question before the Supreme Court is who we want making our nation’s most important, life-changing decisions," Morrisey previously said of the case. "Do we want our elected representatives, who are accountable to the people? Or do we want unelected Washington bureaucrats to do whatever they wish?
"If West Virginia prevails, Congress will decide important questions related to our economy, the power grid, climate change and more — just as the Constitution intended it to do. If not, then EPA can arbitrarily implement regulations that increase utility bills, create job losses, close down coal plants and much worse.”
Morrisey was joined at Monday’s press conference by leaders of some groups that filed amicus briefs in the case.Those included Chris Hamilton, president of the West Virginia Coal Association; Jason Bostic, vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association; Bryan Brown, principal and owner of Bryan Brown Communications; Mike Clowser, executive director at Contractors Association of West Virginia; and Jared Wyrick, president of West Virginia Automobile Dealers Association.
In addition, another amicus brief was filed Monday by 47 U.S. Senators and 44 members of the House of Representatives. That brief was co-led by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and also signed by all three of West Virginia’s members of the House – David McKinley, Carol Miller and Alex Mooney (all Republicans).
Capito, ranking member of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, and Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Washington) led the brief in support of the coalition.
“If Congress had intended to give the EPA such sweeping authority to transform an entire sector of our economy, Congress would have done so explicitly,” their brief states. “An administrative agency like the EPA may decide issues of such vast economic and political significance only when the agency can point to ‘clear congressional authorization.
“Decisions regarding greenhouse gas emissions and the power sector are major policy questions with vast economic and political significance. Only elected members of Congress, representing the will of the people, may decide these questions.
The lawmakers say the EPA’s “attempt to issue expansive regulations cannot stand in the absence of clear congressional authorization.”
“Congress knows how to address greenhouse gas emissions,” their brief states. “In recent years, Congress has decided to pass transformative laws that incentivize reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from a wide range of industries, including the electric power sector.”
The Attorney General, in leading the 19-state coalition, urged the Supreme Court to take the case in April, arguing the appeals court had ignored the February 2016 stay his office won regarding the Obama administration Clean Power Plan. The coalition says that stay should have hinted that the high court viewed existing law as limiting EPA’s authority – not expanding it.
Morrisey leads the Supreme Court brief with support from attorneys general in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming as well as the governor of Mississippi.
U.S. Supreme Court case number 20-1530