West Virginia Files another “Meritless” Legal Challenge to the Clean Power Plan

Today, West Virginia and 14 other states filed lawsuits against the Clean Power Plan in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit – in spite of the fact that the court has already ruled against such lawsuits.

Today’s filings follow a June 9, 2015 decision by the same court in which a three-judge panel, rejecting an unprecedented effort to obtain review of a proposed rule, clearly held that they cannot review a federal standard before the conditions specified by Congress for judicial review have been satisfied. The Clean Power Plan has not yet been published in the Federal Register, and will not be judicially reviewable until it is. 

“It is unfortunate that West Virginia and other states are using taxpayer dollars to bring yet another meritless legal challenge to the Clean Power Plan, instead of protecting public health from dangerous pollution and building a stronger economy,” said Tomás Carbonell, Director of Regulatory Policy and Senior Attorney for Environmental Defense Fund. “Like the previous lawsuit, which was filed by West Virginia and rejected by the D.C. Circuit just a few weeks ago, this new filing does not follow the longstanding procedures clearly set forth under federal law for bringing legal challenges of this kind. This lawsuit is about obstructing one of the most important clean air safeguards in our nation’s history, and it will fare no better than West Virginia’s previous challenge to the Clean Power Plan.”   

The nation’s leading legal experts have found that the Clean Power Plan is on a rock solid foundation – read more about that here.