NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) — New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced Feb. 27 that he is leading a coalition of 25 states, counties and cities in opposing the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its creation of an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (advanced notice) on a “potential” replacement for the Clean Power Plan.
Schneiderman published a statement regarding comments the coalition filed against the decision.
“The ‘advance notice’ is yet another example of the Trump administration’s reckless denial of climate change and failure to act against its increasing harm to our health, environment, and economy,” Schneiderman wrote in the comment. “As the administration continues to put polluters first, our country just experienced one of the hottest years on record, marked with record-breaking storms, floods, and wildfires.”
Schneiderman added that the EPA has enough information to regulate emissions that come from power plants and cause climate change pollution. To Schneiderman and the other members of the coalition, the advance notice is akin to responding to your house getting set on fire by trying to brainstorm with neighbors about how you could fireproof your house in the future.
“The dire need, the science, and the law are clear,” Scheiderman wrote. “[The] EPA must take serious, immediate action to cut climate change pollution from existing fossil fuel-powered power plants. If the Trump EPA abandons this crucial responsibility, we will see them in court.”
The coalition included New York, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota (by and through its Minnesota Pollution Control Agency), New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington, the District of Columbia, and the cities of Boulder, Colorado, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and South Miami Florida, and Broward County, Florida.