Proponents have warned that the US urgently needs to reduce emissions in order to slow warming temperatures that are linked to sea level rise, extreme weather and the spread of disease.īut critics have accused the Obama administration of a “war on coal” and warned that electricity prices will rise by so much that people will not even be able to surf the internet. The EPA is supported by 18 states, plus the District of Columbia, and environmental groups that support the regulation of CO 2 under the Clean Air Act. It will achieve cost-effective CO 2 reductions from an industry that has already demonstrated its ability to comply with robust pollution-control standards through the same measures and flexible approaches.” It adds: “The rule reflects the eminently reasonable exercise of EPA’s recognized statutory authority.
The EPA’s court submission states that the Clean Power Plan addresses “the nation’s most important and urgent environment challenge”. The EPA, which estimates that the Clean Power Plan will reduce CO 2 pollution from the energy sector by 32% below 2005 levels by 2030, said it is confident the regulation will be upheld as it is has “strong scientific and legal foundations”. A form of carbon trading, which has been explicitly blocked at a federal level, could even be allowed between states. The Clean Power Plan would impose emissions limits upon states with coal-fired power plants but will leave it to the states to decide how to lower these emissions. EPA has no authority to impose a system like this one, which requires, in order to stay open, that the owner invests in other facilities.” Peter Keisler, a lawyer representing the plan’s opponents, said in court: “We can’t tell a coal plant, ‘You have to become a solar plant’. West Virginia’s attorney general, Patrick Morrisey, who filed a challenge as soon as the plan was announced, said the plan would cause “West Virginia coalminers to lose their jobs and West Virginians’ electricity bills to skyrocket”. Opponents of the plan claim the US Environmental Protection Agency has overreached by declaring carbon dioxide a harmful pollutant that requires regulation. The District of Columbia court is expected to decide by late February but if the case progresses to the supreme court it is likely to continue into 2018. Earlier this year, the supreme court halted the rollout of the Clean Power Plan until the legal challenges were heard. On Tuesday, lawyers representing the states and the Obama administration presented oral arguments to the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit.
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