Democratic attorneys general are teaming up to try to block the Trump administration’s climate rule rollback agenda, with the latest bout to be fought Wednesday over the repeal of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan.
Halloween is the deadline for submitting comments on the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to repeal the Obama climate plan for coal plants, and replace it with President Trump’s Affordable Clean Energy rule, or ACE.
Whereas the Obama plan called for reducing states’ carbon emissions 32 percent by 2030, ACE focuses on making it easier for coal plants to make efficiency upgrades. But critics say the upgrades will do little to lower carbon dioxide emissions that are to blame for global warming.
It’s so far removed from the Obama rule’s climate goals that New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood said she is ready to sue. Underwood is leading nearly two dozen Democratic state attorneys general, cities, and counties in defending the previous administration’s regulations, her office confirmed to the Washington Examiner.
“If the Trump administration’s proposal to dismantle the Clean Power Plan is adopted, we will work with our state and local partners to file suit to block it — in order to protect New Yorkers, and all Americans, from the increasingly devastating impacts of climate change,” Underwood said in a statement.
The attorney general and her coalition on Wednesday will lay out their legal and policy arguments in comments submitted to EPA for why Trump’s plan is the wrong one for the country.
But the strategy goes beyond just one rule, according to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. He explained on Friday that California is leading the attack against Trump’s clean car rollback, while New York leads the legal defense on the power plant rules.
“In California, we’re prepared to lead the defense of the Clean Car Standards and we stand with New York as it leads the defense of the Clean Power Plan,” he said in an article.
Becerra and 20 other state attorneys general filed comments on Friday with the EPA providing a detailed legal argument against the federal government’s decision not to move forward with strict fuel economy requirements for cars.
But the state attorneys general won’t be alone in voicing their opposition to the Trump ACE rule on Wednesday. A large coalition of environmental groups led by the Natural Resources Defense Council and other prominent environmental advocacy groups are expected to file comments by midnight, according to sources with knowledge of the plans.
The groups see the power plant rule as a “cynical attempt to use the appearance of greenhouse gas regulation to provide a justification for highly controversial” and polluting regulatory reforms for coal plants, said Sean Donahue, an attorney partner with Donahue, Goldberg & Weaver, LLP, representing the Environmental Defense Fund.
Donahue argued that the proposal is legally specious at best, saying a version of the regulatory reform embedded in the ACE rule was slapped down by the courts during the George W. Bush administration. The reforms would allow power plants to make efficiency upgrades while avoiding EPA permitting requirements that would normally make it more difficult to do so.
The basic gist of the environmentalists’ argument is that ACE is not a serious attempt to address greenhouse gas emissions, and will not be enforceable.
Donahue said multiple coalitions will be filing comments on Wednesday against the regulation, including the coalition of environmental groups and the coalition of states.
But individual groups will also be commenting, including those that support the Trump effort from the utility, coal, and oil sectors, according to people with knowledge of the plans.
The utility group Electric Reliability Coordinating Council intends to defend the legal basis of the Trump regulations, arguing that it is both “legally defensible and effective,” according to an outline of comments obtained by the Washington Examiner.
The group will argue that ACE returns to a strict interpretation of the Clean Air Act that returns to “the clear intent of Congress.” The Obama rule went beyond the intent of Congress by including entire states in achieving emissions reductions, instead of just regulating individual power plants, according to the comments.
