Obama’s Clean Power Plan Faces Newest Legal Showdown

"If the Trump EPA gets its way, the Clean Power Plan could be left to die. Supporters of climate change action urged the court to give it a chance."

"The litigious factions wrangling over the Clean Power Plan jockeyed for position in legal briefs filed at a federal appeals court on Monday, trying to gain tactical advantage as the Trump administration seeks to undo the Obama-era rule on climate change pollution from electric utilities.

Administration lawyers said they wanted to 'better preserve the status quo' as they asked the court to defer any action at all. 'The status quo is that the Rule has been stayed by the Supreme Court,' the administration's brief noted. That would keep the Clean Power Plan moribund while the administration prunes it or leaves it to die.

On the other side, lawyers for green groups asked the judges not to let the case go cold 'without any court having issued a decision on its legal merits and without following the administrative steps necessary to amend, suspend or withdraw a regulation.' A group of sympathetic power companies chimed in that deferring a decision 'would amount to indefinite suspension.' And clean-energy trade associations said, 'this court's decision impacts the actions and expenditures of all members of the advanced and renewable energy sector—a $200 billion market.'"

John H. Cushman Jr. reports for InsideClimate News May 16, 2017.

SEE ALSO:

"EPA Climate Rule Supporters Want Court To Drop Lawsuit" (The Hill)

"Clean Power Plan: Supreme Court Stay Factors Into Litigation's Future" (E&E News PM)