Dive Brief:
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A coalition of 25 cities, counties and states on Thursday sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for repealing the majority of the Biden administration’s greenhouse gas emissions requirements for U.S. power plants.
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The coalition also filed a notice of intent to sue the EPA for failing to regulate greenhouse gas pollution from existing gas-fired power plants. These include “peaker” plants that operate during high-demand periods and are often located in low-income communities.
- Several state attorneys general and a representative from the New York City’s Mayor's Office of Climate & Environmental Justice are among the advocates who testified yesterday at a virtual public hearing on the EPA’s proposal to repeal greenhouse gas emissions for power plants altogether. The hearing continues today.
Dive Insight:
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced in September that the agency had finalized the repeal of most provisions of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards for Fossil Fuel-Fired Electric Generating Units and proposed rescinding every remaining greenhouse gas emissions standard for the power sector. Zeldin said the agency does not have the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate power plant greenhouse gases for the purpose of addressing climate change.
The EPA points to the Trump administration’s repeal of the 2009 endangerment finding and the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loper Bright decision as the basis for these actions. “Models continue to show that GHG emissions from power plants have no material impact on global climate change,” it said in announcing the repeal.
The City and County of Denver, the Pennsylvania governor and the mayors of Chicago and New York City joined attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia in filing yesterday’s lawsuit and intent-to-sue notice in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
“The president’s actions won’t unleash American energy, but they will lead to record profits for polluters — all while our air gets dirtier and our bills stay just as high,” Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said in a statement. “The cost of these rollbacks is our health, and we look forward to fighting this in court and seeing these commonsense regulations restored.”
The EPA’s failure to promulgate emission guidelines for existing stationary combustion turbines “has harmed the States and Local Governments that have demanded — for over two decades — that EPA fulfill its statutory duties; and that have experienced, and will continue to experience, catastrophic climate-related harms as a result,” the coalition states in its intent-to-sue notice, which is required before suing a federal agency for failing to perform a mandatory duty.
“Crucially, EPA’s failure to act directly harms overburdened frontline and fenceline communities, who often bear the brunt of copollutant harms from existing gas plants that are disproportionately sited in their communities and who are distinctly vulnerable to the threats posed by climate change,” the coalition states.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a statement that the city “is proudly standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our partners across the country to use the legal system to tell the Trump administration that its rollbacks are unacceptable, that its actions recklessly and callously bring harm to the most vulnerable among us, and that Chicago won’t back down.”
The EPA did not respond to a request for comment.
