More than 20 red states have petitioned the Supreme Court to temporarily block the Biden administration from enforcing its new rules aimed at cutting emissions from power plants.
Attorneys general from 25 states, led by West Virginia and Indiana, are asking the High Court to pause the Environmental Protection Agency's new rules while their legal challenge plays out in the federal courts.
Their filing comes days after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled against the AGs' request to block the rule.
At issue for the states is the EPA's mandate that existing coal and new natural gas power plants capture their carbon emissions by 90% by 2032 or shut down, an effort the AGs in the filing say sets "impossible-to-meet standards for regulated facilities, stripping away the States' discretion to patch up the damage."
"Our position remains the same: this rule strips the states of important discretion while using technologies that don't work in the real world," West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said in a statement Tuesday, picked up by CNN.
The Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Biden administration, saying the states had not shown their legal challenge would succeed on its merits, an assertion the AGs rebut in their filing to the Supreme Court.
The filing says the EPA's requirements are "really a backdoor avenue to forcing coal plants out of existence — a major question that no clear congressional authority permits. The Rule likely cannot stand," the states said.
The states joining the petition are: West Virginia, Indiana, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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