JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced today that his office joined a 21-state coalition opposing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed rule that would impose stringent emissions standards on existing coal-, natural gas- and oil-fired power plants. The rule ignores last year’s rebuke from the United States Supreme Court in West Virginia v. EPA, which held that the EPA cannot implement a narrow regulatory provision to force coal-fired power plants into retirement en masse.
“I will always fight to combat government overreach, and that includes pushing back against Joe Biden’s attack on Missouri’s power plants,” said Attorney General Bailey. “The EPA does not have the constitutional authority to circumvent Congress and enact Biden’s radical climate agenda. Missouri’s fighting back.”
In the letter to Biden’s EPA, Attorney General Bailey and the other states assert that the proposal violates the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA because Congress has not authorized the EPA to remake electricity grids. The agency cannot sidestep Congress to exercise broad regulatory power that would radically transform the nation’s energy grids—and force states to fundamentally shift their energy portfolios away from fossil fuel-fired generation.
The attorneys general note that “States have invested broadly in renewable energy, but the Proposed Rule might make it challenging to ‘get credit’ for those gains. So States the country over will have to realign their energy regulation plans, some several decades out. This rearrangement will cause major and long-term inefficiencies.”
Joining Missouri in sending the letter are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia.