Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has a message for states: Stop all work on President Obama’s climate change rules.
The Kentucky Republican issued a letter to all states Monday explaining that the Supreme Court’s Feb. 9 decision to halt the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan precludes states from complying with it.
“Declining to go along with the administration’s legally dubious plan will help provide the other two branches of government time to address many of the unanswered questions about this plan without putting your state at risk in the interim,” he said in the letter to state governors.
McConnell had urged states to not comply with the regulation a year ago, before it was made final. But states continued to plan to meet the goals of the rules, fearing that if they didn’t, the EPA would impose a more stringent and punitive federal plan on them.
Now, with the Supreme Court freezing the plan, McConnell’s call would seem much more doable.
Under the stay, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in June will take up the merits of a lawsuit filed by 30 states and aligned groups, challenging the legal grounds of the EPA regulation. States are not required under the stay to meet any of the EPA’s deadlines while the judges review the case, although the administration has urged states to move ahead voluntarily.
The high court’s stay will remain in effect until all court decisions related to the Clean Power Plan have been completed, including the likelihood of litigation reaching the Supreme Court after the D.C. Circuit court’s decision.
The Clean Power Plan requires states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions a third by 2030. The plan is the centerpiece of the president’s climate change agenda, including meeting emission cuts under a global deal the U.S. agreed to in Paris in December.
Many scientists blame the emissions the EPA seeks to reduce with causing the Earth’s climate to warm, resulting in more severe weather, droughts and flooding.
