“Once again, President Obama and his EPA have overstepped their legal authority and enacted a regulation that will dramatically raise Texans’ electric bills and threaten the reliability of the electric grid,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. “The Texas Attorney General’s Office is leading a nationwide coalition, along with West Virginia, to prevent massive increases in electric bills that would hurt hard-working families, the elderly and the poor.”
Other states in the lawsuit include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming, according to Paxton.
Murray Energy is seeking an immediate stay of the rule and said, “This is an unprecedented attempt by the EPA to commandeer and re-design the United States’ electrical system, essentially dictating how electricity is to be produced and how much can be used. This political power grab of America’s power grid by the Obama EPA is clearly illegal, goes far beyond any statutory authority, and is, in fact, expressly prohibited by the Clean Air Act.”
The plan will require power plants to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) by 32% from 2005 levels by 2030, 9% more than the EPA originally proposed. States must develop and implement plans that ensure the power plants in their state — either individually, together or in combination with other measures — achieve the interim CO2 emissions performance rates between 2022 and 2029 and the final CO2 emission performance rates, rate-based goals or mass-based goals by 2030.
Murray Energy filed a second lawsuit that challenges the greenhouse gas standards for new power plants. “For more than three years, the Obama EPA has effectively banned the permitting, financing, or construction of new coal-fired power plants by announcing impossible carbon standards,” the company said. “This illegal action continues to devastate the United States coal industry and the jobs and livelihoods that depend on it, and we are asking the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to finally put a prompt end to these illegal actions.”
