Supreme Court puts Obama’s Clean Power Plan on hold

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is calling the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to temporarily block President Barack Obama’s plan to cut power plant emissions a huge victory for the state.

A coalition of 27 U.S. states – a lot of them run by Obama’s Republican adversaries – is suing in a lower court to halt Obama’s Clean Power Plan, and petitioned the Supreme Court to suspend its implementation until the case is resolved.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision late this afternoon to put President Obama’s Clean Power Plan on hold is reverberating across Montana.

Pruitt, a Republican, said he’s convinced the court will agree with the states that the plan exceeds the president’s power.

The order satisfied requests from 30 states which asked the high court to intervene after a federal court in Washington, D.C., refused to issue a stay last month. Liberal Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor voted against granting a stay.

“The Clean Power Plan has a firm anchor in our nation’s clean air laws and a strong scientific record, and we look forward to presenting our case on the merits in the courts”, said Vickie Patton, a lawyer for Environmental Defense Fund, which is a party to the case.

The states, led by coal producer West Virginia and oil producer Texas, and several major business groups in October launched the legal effort seeking to block the Obama administration’s plan. Those harms are “lasting and irreversible”, they said, and “any stay that results in further delay in emissions reductions would compound the harms”.

Analysts say the issue will nearly certainly return to the Supreme Court at some point after it plays out in lower appeals courts – and the court’s order Tuesday assured that until the plan’s legality is determined, the EPA’s plan will not become law.

The ruling means two of Obama’s key unilateral, executive-action initiatives – this and another on immigration that would provide amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants – have been halted by the courts.

The Supreme Court granted emergency stay applications along ideological lines.

The state’s challenge to the Clean Power Plan is being headed up by Attorney General Brad Schimel.

“Whether or not the Court ultimately upholds this particular rule, the need to cut carbon emissions will remain, and states need to figure out the most cost-effective ways to do that”, said Perciasepe, whose organization works with businesses, states and cities on market-based approaches to curbing emissions while keeping power supplies reliable and affordable. That largely would be achieved through a shift from coal-fired power to natural gas and renewable sources in coming years. He added that he supports solutions to make energy cleaner with technology instead of overreaching regulation.