The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia recently granted the Trump administration’s request to “suspend lawsuits against the Clean Power Plan rule,” The Washington Post reports. The Clean Power Plan (CPP) “represents the first-ever regulations to cut carbon pollution from U.S. existing power plants,” nawindpower.com reports. The CPP would reduce carbon emissions from power plants by approximately 32% below 2005 levels by 2030.
David Rivkin, a lawyer for a group of states who filed suit against the CPP, called the D.C. District Court ruling “the death knell of the Clean Power Plan,” saying many of the plan’s rules “have been plagued by fundamental constitutional infirmities,” according to the Washington Post article. The Post also reports, however, that environmental and public health groups that support the CPP still believe they can prevail in court. General counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, for example, has stated that “[t]he Supreme Court is clear that the EPA has a duty to protect Americans from dangerous climate pollution under our nation’s clean air laws.” For more, read the full Washington Post and nawindpower.com articles.
