CHARLESTON, WV (WVDN) — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey on asked the U.S. Supreme Court to issue an emergency stay on the implementation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s recently-released new rule on existing coal-, natural gas- and oil-fired power plants.
This following the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s refusal Friday to block the rule. That rule would force power plants fueled by coal or natural gas to capture smokestack emissions using currently unworkable technologies or shut down. It would regulate those plants under the Clean Air Act by imposing more stringent emissions standards.
The Attorney General co-led with Indiana a coalition of 25 states in a lawsuit in May asking the D.C. Circuit to declare the rule unlawful. West Virginia and Indiana again co-led the coalition in the Tuesday filing.
“Our position remains the same: this rule strips the states of important discretion while using technologies that don’t work in the real world,” Attorney General Morrisey said. “Adding injury to unlawfulness, the Biden administration packaged this rule with several other rules aimed at destroying traditional energy providers.”
The Attorney General is standing firm on his assertion that the EPA ignored 2022’s rebuke from the U.S. Supreme Court in West Virginia v. EPA.
“The landmark West Virginia v. EPA is clear that Congress placed real limits on what the EPA can do, and we will ensure those limits are upheld,” Attorney General Morrisey said. “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. We need the plants to stay open.”
“This is yet another attempt of unelected bureaucrats to push something the law doesn’t allow.”
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 joined the West Virginia- and Indiana-led application.
