Posted on 07/03/2015 4:20:10 AM PDT by thackney
Indiana will not comply with President Barack Obama's plan to battle climate change by requiring reductions in emissions from coal-fired power plants, Republican Gov. Mike Pence said Wednesday.
The proposal as currently written, known as the Clean Power Plan, will make Indiana electricity more expensive and less reliable and hurt economic growth in Indiana and across the nation, Pence wrote in a letter to Obama.
The plan targets pollution from the coal-fired power plants that Indiana relies on. Pence said the Indiana coal industry employs more than 26,000 people.
"If your administration proceeds to finalize the Clean Power Plan, and the final rule has not demonstrably and significantly improved from the proposed rule, Indiana will not comply. Our state will also reserve the right to use any legal means available to block the rule from being implemented," Pence wrote.
Indiana is not the only state to defy the president on the issue. Oklahoma's Republican Gov. Mary Fallin issued an executive order in April prohibiting her state from developing a plan to reduce its carbon dioxide emission from power plants.
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release the final rule in August. As proposed by the EPA last year, the plan would require Indiana to reduce its 2005 level of carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2030. Each state is responsible for drawing up an effective plan to meet its goal.
"Our nation needs an 'all of the above' energy strategy that relies on a variety of different energy sources," Pence wrote to Obama. "Energy policy should promote the safe, environmentally responsible stewardship of our natural resources with the goal of reliable, affordable energy. Your approach to energy policy places environmental concerns above all others."
By not complying with the rule, Indiana would refuse to file a state plan to meet its carbon emissions goal. As a result, the EPA would impose a federal plan on Indiana, which the state then would likely challenge in court.
EPA spokeswoman Melissa Harrison issued a statement saying the draft final rule that "will deliver a clean, affordable and reliable electricity supply, drive American innovation and American jobs, and that will demonstrate U.S. leadership within the international community."
"In the EPA's nearly 45-year history, emissions from power plant pollution have decreased dramatically, improving public health protection for all Americans, while the economy has grown. EPA's plan will not change that," Harrison said.
Pence's letter was praised by the coal industry and investor-owned utilities but panned by an environmentalist.
"Governor Pence has shown repeatedly that his allegiance lies not with protecting our families, but with protecting the profits of Big Coal and dirty fossil fuels. We deserve better," said a statement issued by Jodi Perras, Indiana representative for the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign.
The Union of Concerned Scientists said in a statement that Indiana can meet its 2030 goal by reinstating an energy efficiency standard that it repealed last year, encouraging greater use of renewable energy, and creating a regional program that allows Midwest states to work together to reduce emissions.
Mark Maassel, president of the Indiana Energy Association, which represents the state's investor-owned utilities, said the group believes "the Clean Power Plan will be extremely costly for Indiana customers, which also means it's also bad for the economy. It's very questionable whether it will be supported in the courts."
A federal appeals court earlier this month threw out a lawsuit from a coalition of Indiana and 14 other states that claimed the EPA exceeded its authority last year when it proposed climate change plan.
Oklahoma attorney general challenges EPA’s clean-air plan
http://www.power-eng.com/articles/2015/07/oklahoma-attorney-general-challenges-epa-s-clean-air-plan.html
07/02/2015
A plan by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants would threaten the reliability and affordability of electricity and cause substantial economic injury to the state, Attorney General Scott Pruitt claims in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.
The lawsuit in federal court in Tulsa argues the EPA’s Clean Power Plan exceeds its authority and seeks an injunction that would prohibit the federal agency from regulating coal-fired electricity plants in Oklahoma.
“The EPA is ignoring the authority granted by Congress to states to regulate power plant emissions at their source,” Pruitt said in a statement. “The Clean Power Plan is an unlawful attempt to expand federal bureaucrats’ authority over states’ energy economies in order to shutter coal-fired power plants and eventually other sources of fossil-fuel generated electricity.”...
The president does not obey laws he doesn’t like; why should the people?
CO2 is not a pollutant!!!!!
Oh noes, anarchy!
The Fascist in Chief is forcing de facto secession with his onerous, illegal policies.
They should put man made climate change on trial... This is the only way to stop this...
We will not comply. We need more of this. The states need to actively practice civil disobedience against the federal leviathan.
And they need to promote it -- to their own people...and beyond.
....unless Angie’s List throws a hissy fit. Then Pence will fold.
CO2 is not a pollutant!!!!!
Yes it is!! Liberals should stop exhaling!!! /s
In 2007 SCOTUS ruled that CO2 was a pollutant(Massachusetts v. EPA) and told EPA to regulate CO2 with the Clean Air Act.
Senator and President Obama wanted Congress to regulate CO2, but after Congress failed at that in 2009-10, Obama/EPA moved forward in regulating CO2.
First were the regs on new permits in 2010 and many lawsuits were filed over that but Obama/EPA won that in 2014.(Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA.)
That was followed in 2014 by the Obama/EPA regs on existing permits, which the article is talking as the Clean Power Plan.
So Pence is saying that after the final rule is written in August, he is going to sue, and many more will also sue and ultimately SCOTUS will have to rule on it.
Too late for Pence - he blew it on the gay marriage thing.
“ANYTHING GOES....!”
Let’s hope people everywhere wake up and practice civil disobedience to the tyrant’s impossible rules and laws that are designed to destroy their industries. The man knows he’s destroying America using regulatory agencies to fine the crap out of every possible thing he can turn into an offense.
“The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
Ayn Rand
Hence forth, in Indiana, the element with the Atomic Number 6 and the atomic weight of 12 will be known as pleron.
Regulations related to carbon are not applicable to pleron
I like it! Let’s beat the Lefties at their own game of redefining ‘at will.’ Pleron, it is!!!
I hope now, like he did with the gay issue.
Why should any state comply with what the EPA says? The EPA was created by executive order. Nobody wanted it or voted for it, and it makes up its own rules and laws to impose on people who never had a say in the decision.
All you need to become a member of Union of Concerned Scientists is a credit card.
Give the Feds a taste of “Irish democracy”.
What would Michael Collins do?
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