Rutledge Joins West Virginia, 14 Other States To Ask EPA For Stay On Clean Power Plan

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge has joined with West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and 14 other states to ask the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for an immediate stay of its Clean Power Plan pending the outcome of an impending legal challenge to the rule.

“The EPA’s Clean Power Plan is the wrong direction,” said Attorney General Rutledge. “When it was announced earlier this week, I indicated that I was prepared to take any and all appropriate legal action to protect Arkansans from this unlawful plan, and that is exactly what I, and 15 other States, have done today. This stay is an important first step as legal action is planned.”

On Monday, President Barack Obama and EPA officials unveiled the final version of their Clean Power Plan, which unlawfully exploits Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act to force states to come up with plans to dramatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions by an average of 32% by 2030.

The stay request filed Wednesday (Aug. 5) by Morrisey’s office with the EPA asks the agency to “halt implementation of this onerous regulatory scheme until the courts have a chance to rule on its legality.” Rutledge and Morrisey both said they believe they have a strong case on the merits and will prevail in court once their case is heard.

“Absent an immediate stay, the Section 111(d) Rule will coerce the States to expend enormous public resources and to put aside sovereign priorities to prepare State Plans of unprecedented scope and complexity,” the stay request states. “In addition, the States’ citizens will be forced to pay higher energy bills as power plants shut down. In the end, the courts are likely to conclude that the Section 111(d) Rule is unlawful. At the very minimum, the States and their citizens should not be forced to suffer these serious harms until the courts have had an opportunity to review the Rule’s legality.”

As the attorney general in the second-largest coal-mining state behind Wyoming, Morrisey has led several of the states’ legal challenges against the EPA due to the broad effect that the federal agency’s climate change and environmental regulations have had on that state’s economy and coal industry.

In April, Morrisey’s office took the lead on two separate but related lawsuits against EPA after the president first handed down the proposed Clean Power Plan guidelines to reduce carbon emissions in June 2014.

Both lawsuits contended that the rule and EPA’s threats that it will carry out that rule were illegal. In June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia threw out the challenge in the case of the State of West Virginia vs. Federal Environmental Protection Agency, saying the plaintiffs’ lawsuit was prematurely filed before the federal agency had drafted final rules.

“This request is a necessary first step and prerequisite to confronting this illegal power grab by the Obama administration and EPA,” Attorney General Morrisey said. “These regulations, if allowed to proceed, will do serious harm to West Virginia and the U.S. economy, and that is why we are taking quick action to bring this process to a halt.”

Later that month, in a related EPA case, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that the EPA should have considered a cost-benefit analysis in settings limits to the amount of mercury and other toxic air pollutants at coal-fired power plants.

The EPA proposed to update emission limits for new power plants under the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, or (MATS), in November 2012. After going back and forth with industry and opponents to reconsider certain aspects of the rules for more than two years, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., denied those petitions in April ahead of the Supreme Court challenge.

Although that case is separate from the Clean Power Plan, dozens of industry groups cheered the court’s ruling as a victory against EPA overreach. However, several supporters and legal analysts pointed out the court’s ruling left the door open for federal environmental regulators to re-write the rules again if they factored in the cost of the regulations.

Jared Hunt, spokesman for the West Virginia Attorney General’s office, told Talk Business & Politics that the coalition has asked that the EPA take action on the latest stay request by 4 p.m. Aug. 7.

“While agencies rarely grant these types of requests, given the importance of the matter and the significant economic effects this rule could have, we hope the EPA takes time to review our request and provide an answer soon,” Morrisey said.

Attorneys General Rutledge and Morrisey were joined in this request by the states of Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming, and the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

A copy of the stay application sent by Morrisey’s office can be viewed here.