By Clark Mindock
(Reuters) -Republican attorneys general from 27 U.S. states and industry trade groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday, seeking to block a landmark rule requiring sweeping cuts in carbon emissions from existing coal-fired power plants and new plants.
The rule, which was finalized last month by President Joe Biden’s administration as part of an effort to combat climate change, was challenged in multiple lawsuits filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, including one from the 25 states led by West Virginia and Indiana and another by Ohio and Kansas. Electric, mining and coal industry trade groups also filed lawsuits.
The rule requires many new gas and existing coal-fired power plants to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2032. The requirements are expected to force the U.S. energy industry to install billions of dollars of emissions control technologies or shut down the dirtiest plants. on coal.
The regulations are part of Biden’s broader climate agenda and target a sector responsible for nearly a quarter of the country’s greenhouse gas pollution.
The EPA declined to comment.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said in a statement that the regulations are based on emissions reduction technologies that have not been meaningfully deployed in the real world, exceed the EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act and impact the United States’ energy grid. would radically transform the country without explicit permission. authorization from Congress to do so.
He said the rule “will cause factories to fail and therefore close, changing the country’s already stretched network.”
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Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, whose organization represents nearly 900 local electric cooperatives and filed a lawsuit Thursday, said in a statement that the rule is “unlawful, unreasonable and unfeasible.”
The lawsuit came a day after 23 Republican attorneys general from West Virginia, North Dakota and Texas, among others, challenged another EPA rule that limits the amount of mercury and other dangerous pollutants that can be emitted from power plants.
Legal experts say the EPA’s claim that emissions reductions are achievable if power plants install carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies — which capture emissions before they enter the atmosphere — will likely be a major issue in the lawsuit.
The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to establish standards that are achievable using technologies that have been “adequately demonstrated.” But while the EPA said it believes CCS is viable and cost-effective, opponents say the technology is not yet ready to be deployed in power plants across the country.
CCS has been installed at dozens of facilities that process different fuels, but according to the Global CCS Institute, only four coal-fired power plants have CCS installed worldwide.
“They have a pretty aggressive view of what it means to have something adequately demonstrated, and I think the Supreme Court will look at this and say the EPA is on its guard,” said Jeff Holmstead, a law attorney. firm Bracewell and a former EPA official during the administration of Republican former President George W. Bush.
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But advocates say billions of dollars in funding in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 will make CCS cost-effective, and that the Clean Air Act is intended to force technological advances.
“The law is designed to ensure that these newer and yet-to-be-implemented technologies are deployed,” said Jay Duffy, an attorney at the Center for Applied Environmental Law and Policy.
