CHARLESTON, W.Va. — State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced Wednesday his office has joined 15 other states to ask the U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency to fight against President Barack Obama’s final ruling of the Clean Power Plan.
“This request is a necessary first step and prerequisite to confronting this illegal power grab. These regulations, if allowed to proceed, will do serious harm to West Virginia and the U.S. economy and that is why we are taking quick action to bring this process to a halt,” said Morrisey in a news release.
President Obama and EPA officials unveiled the final version of the plan on Monday. According to the plan, states have to come up with methods to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 30 percent in the next 15 years.
Morrisey and other officials nationwide plan to file a lawsuit against the Obama administration that will be later challenged in court.
The stay request with the EPA asks the agency to put an end to the “scheme” until the courts have an opportunity to rule on its legality.
The stay request states:
“Absent an immediate stay, the Section 111(d) Rule will coerce the States to expend enormous public resources and to put aside sovereign priorities to prepare State Plans of unprecedented scope and complexity. In addition, the States’ citizens will be forced to pay higher energy bills as power plants shut down. In the end, the courts are likely to conclude that the Section 111(d) Rule is unlawful. At the very minimum, the States and their citizens should not be forced to suffer these serious harms until the courts have had an opportunity to review the Rule’s legality.”
States included in this request are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming and the Commonwealth of Kentucky.