Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to pause a federal rule that forces states and power plants to comply with “unrealistic” and “unlawful” regulations targeting air pollution.
In a filing with the court, Yost and the attorney general of Kansas oppose a recent Environmental Protection Agency rule that gives coal-fired power plants an ultimatum: Capture and store 90% of carbon emissions or shut down within eight years.
“The EPA has resorted to ‘take it or leave it’ tactics to force its climate agenda on states and their power industries,” Yost said. “Protecting the air we breathe shouldn’t cost us our rights.”
The attorneys general assert that the EPA lacks authority under the Clean Air Act to impose such regulations, noting a court ruling in a separate case that blocked the agency from forcing power plants to shift from fossil-fuel power to other types of energy.
The EPA is taking an indirect approach to achieve the same unlawful outcome, the filing says, by giving states and power plants “impossible choices” that inevitably favor the agency’s climate agenda and strip states of their rights.
Under the rule, the filing says, the EPA presents power plants with the no-win option to either risk billions of dollars on unproven emissions technology to meet unachievable benchmarks or shut down.
Likewise, states can choose to immediately expend significant resources to comply with a rule that is likely to prove illegal or stand by as the federal government infringes on their sovereignty, the attorney generals write.
In July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit allowed the EPA’s rule to take effect as legal challenges continue. Yost and Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach seek a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court to put a hold on the rule while the case proceeds.
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