A senior Republican senator is charging that the Environmental Protection Agency is trying to intimidate states by saying it will keep moving forward with its landmark climate rule, despite a decision by the Supreme Court to halt the far-reaching regulation.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, wrote in a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on Thursday that said McCarthy does not appear to have publicly accepted the court’s decision about the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. He said her statements in the wake of the decision have ranged from “muddled reticence” to “outright defiance,” leaving states “confused and in limbo.”
“I believe that you and the administration are painfully aware of the challenges to fulfilling this [Paris] pledge following the Supreme Court stay,” Inhofe wrote. “Regardless of this, EPA’s methods to intimidate and confuse states into continuing implementation are inappropriate. The law, longstanding precedent, and EPA’s own words and actions support the tolling of all compliance deadlines as a result of the stay.”
“Possibly you are attempting to intimidate states into continuing their planning process since the [Clean Power Plan] is the mainstay of the administration’s Paris [climate deal] promise,” Inhofe added.
The Clean Power Plan requires states to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by one third by 2030. A group of 30 states, along with aligned industry groups and others, won a decision from the Supreme Court last month staying the plan. The stay will remain in place as the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals addresses the merits of states’ arguments, and if plaintiffs bring a case to the high court sometime next year.
In that time, state attorneys general opposing the rule have said that under the stay, no state is obligated to move ahead under the Clean Power Plan’s deadlines, not should they continue work on developing their compliance plans for abiding by the rule. The first deadline under the climate plan is September 2016.
The plan is also the centerpiece of the president’s climate change agenda, a core piece of which is the Paris climate deal reached last December by 196 countries. Inhofe believes the court stay makes it difficult to move forward under the Paris deal, and EPA is attempting to keep pushing despite the decision.
“Without the [Clean Power Plan], the president’s goal of reducing [greenhouse gas] emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 is impossible to achieve,” he wrote. “Current analysis of the Paris promise shows that 45 percent of the promised reductions are unaccounted for, so if the federal courts were to strike down the [plan], or if the next president were to decide not to implement the rule, the gap increases to 60 percent between Obama’s promise and what is actually achievable.”
He said the emission shortfall has “prompted policy experts in India and China to question the commitment you put forward, which could justify other countries’ decision to further weaken their already less stringent commitments.”
