Attorneys General Want EPA to Stop Spending Dollars on Suspended Clean Power Plan

stopspending

The Attorneys General in Texas and West Virginia are asking the Environmental Protection Agency to stop spending taxpayers dollars to comply with the halted Clean Power Plan.

“The entire point of the Supreme Court’s extraordinary action in putting a stop to the Power Plan was to preserve the status quo pending the outcome of the litigation,” wrote Texas AG Ken Paxton and West Virginia’s Patrick Morrisey. “EPA should respect that action by leaving things the way they are until the courts have had their say.”

It’s the same lawsuit that Oklahoma joined in suing the EPA over the controversial plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants. Morrisey and Paxton were considered the leaders in the lawsuit by 29 states and state agencies that won the stay from the Supreme court. The decision denies the EPA authority to enforce the rule and all compliance deadlines tied with the Power Plant were also frozen.

They wrote the letter after 14 state environmental agency officials sought more information and technical help from the EPA about the Power Plan. Morrisey and Paxton told the EPA it should not offer assistance to those agencies and the EPA should discontinuing work immediately on the “Clean Energy Incentive Program” and the non-final carbon trading rules. They contend that by taking action on the request of the 14 agencies, it calls into question the EPA’s commitment to following the Supreme Court order.

A new Supreme Court hearing on the case won’t be heard until Sept. 27.