Republican attorneys general sue to end EPA carbon rule

By Clark Mindock

(Reuters) – A group of 25 Republican attorneys general sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday, seeking to block a landmark rule requiring sweeping reductions in carbon emissions from existing and new coal-fired power plants. natural gas.

The lawsuit in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is being led by West Virginia and Indiana. It aims for a rule finalized by President Joe Bidenadministration on April 25 as part of an effort to combat climate change.

The rule requires many existing new gas and coal-fired power plants to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2032. These requirements are expected to force the U.S. power industry to install greenhouse gas emissions control technologies. worth billions of dollars or shutting down the dirtiest operating facilities. on coal.

The regulations are part of Biden’s broader climate agenda and target a sector responsible for nearly a quarter of the nation’s greenhouse gas pollution.

The lawsuit comes a day after 23 Republican attorneys general from states including West Virginia, North Dakota and Texas challenged a different EPA rule that limits the amount of mercury and other dangerous pollutants that can be emitted by power plants.

The EPA declined to comment.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said the regulations are based on emissions-reducing technologies that have not been significantly deployed in the real world, exceed the agency’s authority under of the Clean Air Act and would radically transform the nation’s energy grid without explicit authorization from Congress. SO.

He said the rule “forces the failure of power plants and thus their closure, thereby altering the country’s already extensive grid.”

(Reporting by Clark Mindock, editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Christina Fincher and Michael Erman)