High court puts on hold EPA's power-plant rules

Emissions stream from the coal-fired Ghent Generating Station near Ghent, Ky., in this 2014 photo. The U.S. Supreme Court, acting on an appeal from utilities, coal miners and 27 states, including Arkansas, has delayed a federal regulation that would cut emissions.
Emissions stream from the coal-fired Ghent Generating Station near Ghent, Ky., in this 2014 photo. The U.S. Supreme Court, acting on an appeal from utilities, coal miners and 27 states, including Arkansas, has delayed a federal regulation that would cut emissions.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocked a new federal regulation that would cut emissions from power plants, putting a hold on President Barack Obama's effort to combat climate change.

The justices heeded calls from utilities, coal miners and 27 states -- including Arkansas -- to halt the Environmental Protection Agency rule while court challenges go forward. Opponents of the EPA plan say the agency is overstepping its authority and intruding on states' rights.

The delay will last at least until a federal appeals court in Washington rules on the plan. If the utilities and states lose in that court, the delay would continue during a Supreme Court review. The EPA won't be able to enforce a Sept. 6 deadline for states to either submit their emission-reduction plans or request a two-year extension.

The high court's vote was 5-4. The dissenters were all Democratic appointees: Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

"We disagree with the Supreme Court's decision to stay the Clean Power Plan while litigation proceeds," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement.

Earnest said the administration's plan is based on a strong legal and technical foundation and gives the states time to develop cost-effective plans to reduce emissions. He also said the administration will continue to "take aggressive steps to make forward progress to reduce carbon emissions."

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a Republican whose coal-dependent state is helping lead the legal fight, called the high court's action a "great victory."

"We are thrilled that the Supreme Court realized the rule's immediate impact and froze its implementation, protecting workers and saving countless dollars as our fight against its legality continues," Morrisey said in a statement.

Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge called the high court's decision "good news."

"By granting a stay of the Clean Power Plan, the Court has prevented an unlawful, out-of-touch plan drafted by bureaucrats in Washington from moving forward until the legal challenges are properly resolved," the Republican said in a statement. "This helps ensure that Arkansas and other states are not forced to comply with a rule that will likely be found unlawful."

The EPA rule, known as the Clean Power Plan, requires states and utilities to use less coal and more wind power, solar power or natural gas. The program is designed to bring about a 32 percent cut in carbon emissions from power plants by 2030, from a 2005 baseline, by closing hundreds of coal-fired plants in favor of wind and solar power.

The Obama administration said power plants wouldn't face deadlines to begin cutting emissions until 2022 at the earliest, and they wouldn't have to be in full compliance until 2030.

Implementation of the plan is considered essential to the U.S. meeting emissions-reduction targets in a global climate agreement signed in Paris last year.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Jan. 21 unanimously refused the request by the rule's opponents to grant a stay, pushing the request to the Supreme Court. The case now returns to the appeals court, which is set to begin hearing arguments June 2.

Rule called 'power grab'

The states urged the Supreme Court to take immediate action to block what they called a "power grab" under which "the federal environmental regulator seeks to reorganize the energy grids in nearly every state in the nation." The states said they had already started to spend money and shift resources to get ready for the 2022 deadline.

It's "the most far-reaching and burdensome rule EPA has ever forced onto the states," attorneys general from the 27 states argued in court papers.

Eighteen states, most led by Democrats, opposed the request for a stay, saying in court filings that they were "continuing to experience climate-change harms firsthand -- including increased flooding, more severe storms, wildfires and droughts." Those problems are "lasting and irreversible," they said, and "any stay that results in further delay in emissions reductions would compound the harms that climate change is already causing."

The EPA, represented by U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, called the requests for a stay "extraordinary and unprecedented." The states challenging the administration's plan, Verrilli said, could point to no case in which the Supreme Court had "granted a stay of a generally applicable regulation pending initial judicial review in the court of appeals." In a later brief, the states conceded that point.

Verrilli said judicial review of the plan, including by the Supreme Court, will be completed before the first deadline for emissions reductions in 2022.

The challengers -- which include Southern Co.; Peabody Energy Corp., the largest U.S. coal-miner; and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- said companies and states already were having to prepare for the rule to take effect.

Southern and other utilities told the justices that, without Supreme Court intervention, companies would have to "begin the complex and lengthy process of shutting down or curtailing generation from existing plants and shifting that generation to new sources."

"Some of the nation's largest coal companies have declared bankruptcy, due in no small part to the rule," the group said.

A coalition of environmental groups and companies that produce and rely on wind and solar power said other factors were to blame for coal's decline.

"These changes include the abundant supply of relatively inexpensive natural gas, the increasing cost-competitiveness of electricity from renewable generation sources such as solar and wind power, the deployment of low-cost energy efficiency and other demand-side measures, and increasing consumer demand for advanced energy, as well as the rising costs of coal production and the high costs of maintaining very old coal-fired plants," they wrote.

Information for this article was contributed by Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News, Adam Liptak of The New York Times and staff members of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

A Section on 02/10/2016

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