- The Obama administration yesterday defended its Clean Power Plan regulation limiting carbon emissions from power plants, telling the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that the rule is well within the bounds of its authority.
- The Clean Air Act provides the EPA with “well-established authority to abate threats to public health and welfare by limiting the amount of air pollution that power plants pump into the atmosphere,” the agency wrote in a brief submitted to the court, and that the regulation was critical to addressing what it said was the most important environmental challenge facing the U.S.
- The regulation would require a 32% cut in power plant carbon emissions by 2030, based on 2005 levels, by calling on states to shift their power sources from coal-fired plants to cleaner sources such as renewable sources and natural gas.
- The D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments on the legality of the regulation in June; whichever side loses is expected to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which blocked the rule in February, sending it back to the D.C. court .
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