The Environmental Protection Agency brought an air of defiance to the largest energy conference of the year in Houston on Wednesday, saying a recent Supreme Court decision to halt President Obama’s climate plan, though jarring, will not slow the administration.
“I don’t think we’re going to lose one single ton of greenhouse gas reductions,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy at IHS CERAWeek.
While she admitted her “head hit the table” when the Supreme Court made its Feb. 9 decision, she said she remains optimistic that the Clean Power Plan will emerge unscathed, according to the website FuelFix that reported her remarks from the conference. The plan is the centerpiece of Obama’s climate change agenda, which requires states to cut greenhouse gas emissions a third by 2030. Many scientists blame greenhouse gases for driving manmade climate change.
Thirty states, with industry and aligned groups, are opposing the plan, arguing that it oversteps the EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act as well as the Constitution.
The Supreme Court stay will remain in place while a federal appeals court takes up the merits in the lawsuit opposing the Clean Power Plan. Oral arguments in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals have been scheduled to begin June 2.
