Free-market groups are putting pressure on Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder to back down from his recent decision to comply with President Obama’s strict new emission rules for power plants.
Snyder made the decision Sept. 1, nearly a month after Obama finalized the rules, called the Clean Power Plan. The plan places states on the hook to reduce their emissions a third by 2030, while incentivizing renewables and putting pressure on coal plants to close. It is the centerpiece of the president’s climate change agenda.
A group of 16 states, including Michigan, is poised to sue the Environmental Protection Agency over the rule as soon as it is published in the Federal Register.
A letter obtained by the Washington Examiner, sent Monday night to Snyder by more than two dozen groups opposing the plan, says Snyder’s choice undermines the legal effort to vanquish the regulation in court. The letter asks that the GOP governor reconsider his decision and stick to the game plan laid out by Michigan’s attorney general in joining the lawsuit months ago.
“A state plan only provides the illusion of control,” reads the letter, led by the advocacy group American Energy Alliance. “Instead of helping President Obama implement the rule, we believe the best approach is for states to reject state plans until the courts decide whether Obama even has the authority to impose his national energy takeover.
“For the sake of Michiganders and all Americans, it is worth the wait,” the letter adds.
American Energy Alliance is the advocacy arm of the Institute for Energy, a nonprofit think tank that analyzes government regulations affecting the energy sector.
Other groups sending the letter include: Tea Party Patriots, Federalism in Action, State Budget Solutions, Energy Makes America Great, Campaign to Free America, Americans for Limited Government, Institute for Liberty, as well as the Hispanic Leadership Fund, National Black Chamber of Commerce and 60 Plus Association.
A number of the groups say the Clean Power Plan will drive up the cost of electricity, cause the energy grid to become more unstable, while overstepping states’ rights.
Many of the 16 states preparing to sue EPA filed litigation in a previous attempt to squash the rule. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said the states’ challenge was premature and threw it out. The federal judges said they could not take action on a regulation that at the time was not finalized.
Now that the rule is final, the states are waiting for it to be published in the Federal Register so they can re-submit litigation.
The letter urges Snyder to wait out the lawsuit. “As you know, Michigan recently joined sixteen other states suing EPA over the carbon rule. As Michigan Attorney General [Bill] Schuette explained, the regulation is ‘yet another executive action taken by President Obama and the EPA that violates the Clean Air Act and causes the price of electricity to increase, placing jobs at risk and costing Michigan families more.'”
“Choosing to submit a state plan before legal resolution of this regulation relinquishes state control of electricity and ultimately empowers federal bureaucrats,” the letter says.
Snyder said Sept. 1 that complying with the Clean Power Plan was best way to keep federal regulators out of Michigan’s business. “The best way to protect Michigan is to develop a state plan that reflects Michigan’s priorities of adaptability, affordability, reliability and protection of the environment,” he said.
“We need to seize the opportunity to make Michigan’s energy decisions in Lansing, not leave them in the hands of bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.,” he said.
