Opponents of Obama’s Carbon Pollution Rule Are Trying Nearly Everything to Take It Down

It can be hard to keep track of all the tactics that critics in Congress, the states, and industry have been using to keep the administration from regulating carbon dioxide from power plants.  Some are redundant, some are doomed to fail, and some have a chance of stopping or fatally delaying the rule.

But first, it’s important to keep in mind what the carbon rule actually is.

The proposed rule, part of the Clean Power Plan, provides states with the flexibility to craft their own plans to reduce carbon emissions from the electric power sector.  Those plans altogether would have to meet the national goal of a 30 percent drop in carbon emissions from existing power plants by 2030 from 2005 levels.  It’s the result of a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that greenhouse gases should be regulated under the Clean Air Act if they endanger public health — which it did.

Each state would have a broad menu of carbon-cutting options, including energy efficiency improvements, adding clean energy, implementing a carbon tax, joining a cap-and-trade system, or instituting their own.  For the most part, states will look to transition from the worst heavy-pollution coal-fired power plants to cleaner-burning natural gas and renewables.  Even more importantly, the rule is a major part of America’s international commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent below their 2005 levels by 2020 — which has already encouraged other countries to make commitments of their own.

The fight to solve the climate crisis is itself a race against time, and the Clean Power Plan (CPP) is no less than that same race distilled down into an American political fight.  Opponents have taken this to heart, and have made delaying implementation of the rule one of their main goals, utilizing many different tactics to gum up the works long enough with the hope that a Republican president would stop things entirely in 2017.  The Democratic field, from Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders to Martin O’Malley to Lincoln Chafee, are each supporters of serious climate action, while it’s difficult to find a Republican that takes the issue seriously.

Here is how opponents will try to stop or slow the rule before 2017.

• To the courts
• Congressional /legislation
• Budget
• State legislative action
• Out-and-out refusal

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