Republican presidential hopeful Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is pressing the Environmental Protection Agency to halt its emission rules for power plants from taking effect, calling the regulations at the center of the president’s climate change agenda legally flawed and “burdensome.”
“This is a fundamentally flawed plan that threatens the progress we’ve already made in developing clean and renewable energy in New Jersey without the heavy-handed overreach of Washington,” Christie said Wednesday afternoon.
The governor said the EPA regulation, called the Clean Power Plan, is yet another example of President Obama’s administration “inappropriately reaching far beyond its legal authority … to implement burdensome regulations on businesses and state governments alike.”
EPA finalized the Clean Power Plan Aug. 3, placing states on the hook to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions one-third by 2030. The final plan pushes back the start date of the federal program from 2020 to 2022, a concession to states that complained the rule could not be achieved that quickly. But it also raised the overall emission reduction target from 30 to 32 percent by 2030.
The Clean Power Plan is the centerpiece of the president’s climate change agenda to secure an international deal on emissions reductions in Paris later this year.
Republicans have blasted the plan as regulatory overreach and an affront to states’ rights. A group of 15 states is poised to sue the agency over the regulation once it is published in the Federal Register, but the Justice Department informed federal judges this week that won’t happen for at least two months.
That lawsuits, which will be delayed until well into the fall, may be provoking some states to take different action. Christie’s administration is sending a formal petition to the agency to ask it to stay the rule. But other states, such as Michigan, have decided to concede to the EPA plan. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder of the Wolverine State said this week that he is giving in to the EPA and will comply with the rule. Michigan, however, is still part of the group of states led by West Virginia seeking to sue.
Christie’s own Department of Environmental Protection sent a letter to the EPA Wednesday asking to halt the plan, saying it would “burden the citizens of our state with unjustifiable increases in electricity costs while also complicating New Jersey’s efforts to make further reductions in carbon emissions.”
The letter, written by New Jersey environmental commissioner Bob Martin, said the Clean Power Plan contains “vague … unresolved” provisions that must be worked out before any state should be made to comply. Martin is alluding to questions about the EPA’s authority to require states to regulate emissions through measures that go beyond just regulating power plants.
The measures are referred to as “outside the fence” measures, which include renewable energy development and other measures that have never been part of an EPA rule for regulating power plants. Many states have raised the concern with the EPA, arguing that the rule may be legally vulnerable and subject to revision by a federal court. Some states argue that they don’t want to commit to a regulation that may be thrown out by a federal court.
The New Jersey request for administrative stay underscored the “beyond the fence” concerns, saying the state will win on the merits in a legal argument challenging the rule.
A court may find that the EPA can regulate emissions at existing power plants, but regulating any other part of a state’s energy system is outside the agency’s jurisdiction under the Clean Air Act, the petition states.
The EPA responded to New Jersey’s claims by saying the rule is fair, flexible and legally defensible. The statement said the EPA and the Department of Justice will defend the rule vigorously in court.
