EDF, Allies Challenge Trump EPA’s Rollback of Clean Power Plan in Court Argument

(Washington, D.C. – October 8, 2020) A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral argument this morning in legal challenges to the Trump EPA’s repeal and replacement of America’s Clean Power Plan.

The Clean Power Plan established our only nationwide limits on carbon pollution from existing fossil fuel-fired power plants – one of the United States’ largest sources of the pollution that causes climate change. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler scrapped the Clean Power Plan and issued in its place the misleadingly named Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, which establishes no meaningful limits on carbon pollution, and would actually increase pollution at nearly one in five of the nation’s coal-fired power plants. Two-thirds of those plants are located in low-income or minority communities that are disproportionately burdened by air pollution.

EDF is part of a broad coalition of 14 health and environmental groups, 23 states and eight cities, nine power companies, and three clean energy associations that filed suit shortly after the ACE rule was finalized last year.

“”The Trump Administration’s decision to scrap the Clean Power Plan and issue a wholly inadequate replacement leaves Americans with no meaningful protection against the massive quantities of climate pollution from fossil fuel power plants – at a time when communities across America are suffering from wildfires, intense hurricanes, sea level rise, and other devastating impacts of climate change,” said EDF Senior Counsel and Director of Regulatory Policy Tomás Carbonell. “We are asking the court to strike down this unlawful and unjustified attack on our climate and public health, and to require the agency to fulfill its responsibility under the Clean Air Act to protect the public from harmful pollution.”

Oral argument will begins at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time. The D.C. Circuit will live stream the proceedings here.