Unanimous Appeals Court Denies Attempt to Block Climate Pollution Standards for Power Plants

(Washington, D.C. – July 19, 2024) The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today unanimously denied an attempt by Republican Attorneys General and fossil fuel industry parties to block EPA’s protections limiting climate pollution from power plants.

“Climate change is here and it is harming all of us. Americans across the nation are suffering from the intense heat waves, extreme storms and flooding, and increased wildfires caused by climate pollution,” said Vickie Patton, General Counsel of Environmental Defense Fund, which filed an amicus brief in the case. “EPA has a legal responsibility, mandated by Congress, to control harmful climate pollution, which the court recognized today. We will continue to strongly defend EPA’s cost-effective and achievable carbon pollution standards for power plants.”

On April 25, EPA unveiled standards that will slash climate pollution from new gas-burning power plants and existing coal-burning power plants. Fossil fuel-fired power plants are responsible for about one-quarter of all U.S. climate pollution. 

The Clean Air Act requires EPA to address climate pollution, and the agency’s authority was recently reinforced by Congress in specific instructions in the Inflation Reduction Act. The performance-based standards that EPA unveiled in April allow power companies flexibility to achieve required pollution reductions. The availability of low and zero-emitting solutions has been turbocharged by extensive investments under two recent Congressional laws – the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Clean power is now the most affordable and most reliable option in the U.S.

A group of Republican Attorneys General and fossil fuel-related businesses petitioned the D.C. Circuit to stay – or immediately block – these critically important protections. EDF filed an amicus, or friend of the court, brief opposing those stay requests and supporting EPA’s standards. 

Today a unanimous three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit denied the request for a stay, saying:

[“P]etitioners have not shown they are likely to succeed on [their] claims given the record in this case. Nor does this case implicate a major question under West Virginia v. EPA … because EPA has claimed only the power to ‘set emissions limits under Section 111 based on the application of measures that would reduce pollution by causing the regulated source to operate more cleanly[,]’ a type of conduct that falls well within EPA’s bailiwick.” 

The panel included judges Millett, Pillard, and Rao – who was a high-ranking official in the Trump White House. 

The D.C. Circuit had already rejected an administrative request for a stay, by West Virginia and by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. The court will now begin considering the case on the merits.