The lawsuit, Murray Energy v. E.P.A., challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. If enacted, the rule could shutter hundreds of such plants, freeze construction of future plants and slow demand for coal production in the United States.
The lawsuit was the first in a wave of expected legal challenges to the climate change rules. Legal experts expect that some of those challenges will ultimately make it to the Supreme Court.
Among the lawyers arguing on behalf of the coal companies was Laurence Tribe, a renowned Harvard scholar of constitutional law and Mr. Obama’s former law school mentor.
The E.P.A. put forth the power plants proposal last June, and after taking public comments and revising the plan, which is scheduled to be revealed in final form in August. The judges in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the challenge, saying it was unprecedented for a court to review a rule that had been introduced only in the form of a draft.
All three circuit court judges agreed that the challenge was premature.
“Petitioners are champing at the bit to challenge E.P.A.’s anticipated rule restricting carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants,” Judge Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the opinion. “But E.P.A. has not yet issued a final rule. It has issued only a proposed rule. Petitioners nonetheless ask the court to jump into the fray now. They want us to do something that they candidly acknowledge we have never done before: review the legality of a proposed rule.”
He concluded, “We deny the petitions for review and the petition for a writ of prohibition because the complained-of agency action is not final.”
Read more at Coal Plant Rules Proposed by E.P.A. Survive Federal Court Challenge
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