Clean Wisconsin has joined environmental and public health groups suing to stop the Environmental Protection Agency’s repeal of critical standards for power plant carbon pollution. NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, Clean Air Council, and Clean Wisconsin (represented by Clean Air Task Force), and the Environmental Defense Fund filed the action at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today.
“This unlawful rollback will have devastating consequences if allowed to stand,” said Brett Korte, Senior Staff Attorney at Clean Wisconsin. “Here in Wisconsin, we’re experiencing warmer winters with less snow and ice cover, more exceedingly hot days in summer, and more frequent extreme weather events, like flooding and tornadoes, due to climate change. On top of that, Wisconsin has the ninth-highest death rate from particulate matter pollution from fossil fuel combustion. EPA abandoning its responsibility to regulate carbon pollution would only make these problems worse.”
The 2024 standards the EPA finalized its repeal of today were estimated to deliver a net $370 billion in climate and health benefits – with benefits a stunning 20 times that of the costs to industry. A recent NRDC analysis found that this administration’s policies will destroy $700 billion in new power sector investments over the next decade and cut by half the power sector carbon reductions likely before its policies took effect.
The Clean Air Act obligates EPA to issue standards to reduce emissions from sources such as power plants that significantly contribute to dangerous air pollution. The EPA’s action follows a new United Nations report warning that the world is set to exceed a key climate threshold and so countries need to take more intensive actions to cut carbon pollution while also intensifying efforts to adapt to climate change-fueled heat, storms and fires.
The carbon standards for power plants were finalized in April of 2024 and would require carbon pollution reductions from existing coal and new gas-fired power plants. Fossil-fuel power plants are responsible for about a quarter of the nation’s carbon emissions. Those standards were based on pollution controls that could be accomplished at an individual power plant, making them consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA.
