RALEIGH — Attorney General Josh Stein has joined attorneys general from across the country in opposing the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan, the first nationwide emission limits on existing fossil fuel-burning power plants.
Stein filed Friday comments opposing the Trump administration’s “unlawful and unsupported” proposed repeal of plan.
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“The Clean Power Plan makes us safer and healthier,” Stein said in a statement. “Investing in clean energy creates jobs, makes us more secure from Middle East terrorism, and combats climate change.”
Supporters of the repeal championed by the Trump administration say its regulations impose unattainable emission performance standards on existing fossil fuel power plants.
Stein along with attorneys generals from New York, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, the District of Columbia, as well as the chief legal officers of the cities of Boulder, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, South Miami and Broward County are working together on opposing the repeal.
The coalition says the Trump administration’s repeal “completely ignores the dire threat climate change poses, the interconnected nature of power plants, and the nature of the pollutant (carbon dioxide) that is the subject of regulation.”
The Clean Power Plan was the culmination of a decade-long effort by partnering states and cities to require mandatory cuts in the emissions of climate change pollution from fossil fuel-burning power plants under the Clean Air Act. The Clean Power Plan, along with the companion rule applicable to new, modified and reconstructed power plants, sets limits on the amount of climate change pollution that power plants may emit.
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Advocates say the Clean Power Plan is expected to eliminate as much climate change pollution as is emitted by more than 160 million cars a year, or 70 percent of the nation’s passenger cars.
