WY & NE delegations Join the Fight Against Clean Power Plan

Via KGWN:

Washington, DC – Today (2/23/16), U.S. Senators Mike Enzi and John Barrasso and U.S. Representative Cynthia Lummis, all R-Wyo., joined a bipartisan group of 34 senators and 171 representatives in signing a friend-of-the-court brief supporting petitioners challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) so-called Clean Power Plan.

Senator Deb Fischer and Representative Adrian Smith of Nebraska also signed on to the petition.

On Feb. 9, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay on President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, stopping the plan from being enforced while lower courts consider challenges to the plan.

The case before the D.C. circuit court is West Virginia v. EPA. The amicus brief argues that the EPA’s expanded regulations usurped Congress’s legislative role, and has placed unlawful and expensive mandates on states and the public.

“The EPA’s ‘Clean Power’ Plan is a direct attack against coal and Wyoming,” Enzi said. “I am proud to support states in their lawsuit against the EPA. Coal makes up almost 40 percent of our nation’s energy, and about 40 percent of that coal is produced in Wyoming. America runs on coal and without it the U.S. won’t be able to keep the lights on. We will keep fighting this bad rule on every possible front.”

“The Obama administration overstepped legal bounds with its so-called clean power plan,” said Barrasso. “If left unchecked, this multi-billion dollar carbon mandate will crush jobs, devastate coal country and raise energy prices for American families. This amicus brief is just one of the ways Congress is fighting to make sure this rule is eliminated for good.”

“I am proud to stand beside Wyoming and the other states and litigants against the EPA’s costly, overreaching rule that would kill jobs in coal country, drive up the price of electricity for all Americans, and increase manufacturing costs for American-made products,” said Lummis. “We will continue fighting this rule legislatively while supporting the states’ case in the courts and using any other means at our disposal to stop this rule dead in its tracks.”

Petitioners in West Virginia v. EPA include Wyoming and 26 other states, 24 national trade associations, 37 rural electric cooperatives, and three labor unions representing 900,000 members.

See the article here.