A bipartisan group of 34 senators and 171 representatives Tuesday filed an amicus brief in a current legal challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants. At the head of the group stand Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), and House Energy and Commerce Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), all outspoken critics of the rule.
The lawmakers have previously described the Clean Power Plan as a “power grab” and an attack in the “war on coal.” Under the rule, implementation of which is currently on hold following a Supreme Court stay ruling, states are required to develop action plans to meet federally set carbon emissions reduction goals.
“[I]f Congress desired to give EPA sweeping authority to transform the nation’s electricity sector, Congress would have provided for that unprecedented power in detailed legislation. Indeed, when an agency seeks to make “decisions of vast ‘economic and political significance’” under a ‘long-extant statute,’ it must point to a ‘clear’ statement from Congress,” the brief says.
The brief supports an immense group of more than 150 states, utilities, fossil fuel companies, and trade and interest groups that have sued the EPA over the rule in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Oral arguments for the suit are scheduled for early June.
