Environmentalists changed their legal strategy Monday in urging a federal appeals court to completely shut down a legal case over former President Barack Obama’s climate change regulations.
The groups told the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that they would prefer if it sent the Clean Power Plan back to the Environmental Protection Agency to do to the climate regulations as the Trump administration sees fit. That would have the effect of ending the Supreme Court’s February 2016 stay of the rules, which the Trump administration doesn’t want.
“Remand would allow termination of the Supreme Court’s stay pending litigation, and would properly place the responsibility on EPA to follow statutory rulemaking procedures if it wishes to delay implementation or make other changes to the rule,” a coalition of groups said in a court brief Monday.
The appeals court recently gave the Trump administration a major victory in its push to repeal the climate rules. The court held in abeyance a lawsuit over the Clean Power Plan, which it had been reviewing for nearly nine months, until the Trump EPA has had time to conduct its own review of the plan. The litigation was from 28 states and dozens of industry groups opposing the regulations.
But the Trump EPA and Justice Department don’t agree with the environmental groups’ court documents, especially the fact that they look to overcome last year’s Supreme Court stay.
“Abeyance is the proper course of action because it would better preserve the status quo, conserve judicial resources and allow the new administration to focus squarely on completing its current review of the Clean Power Plan as expeditiously as possible,” said Justice Department attorneys.
