NORTH DAKOTA AND 22 OTHER STATES ASK THE DC CIRCUIT TO STAY EPA’S MATS RULE WHILE CHALLENGES TO THE RULE ARE HEARD

10 Jun NORTH DAKOTA AND 22 OTHER STATES ASK THE DC CIRCUIT TO STAY EPA’S MATS RULE WHILE CHALLENGES TO THE RULE ARE HEARD

June 10, 2024

_{CONTACT: Suzie Weigel, 701.328.2210}

Bismarck, ND – North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley and Attorneys General from West Virginia, Alaska, Georgia, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming filed a motion late last Friday asking the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to stay implementation of EPA’s new MATS Rule while legal challenges to the Rule are heard.

The new MATS Rule, which EPA admits would provide no measurable health benefits, mandates that coal-fired power plants further reduce emission rates for mercury and certain other chemicals by 66-70%. The plan was announced by the Biden Administration as part of a “suite” of regulations targeting coal-fired power plants in April. EPA acknowledges that there are no quantifiable health benefits from the Rule’s mandated emission reductions. Power plant operators, grid operators, and state regulators from around the country submitted affidavits in support of the States’ motion explaining that unless the Rule is stayed while legal challenges are heard power plants may be forced onto retirement tracks and power grid reliability may be undermined.

“It is abundantly clear that the Biden administration’s EPA designed this rule to intentionally set emission standards that are unattainable with current technology, and they did so for the purpose of forcing coal-fired plants to retire,” North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley said in a statement. “The EPA Administrator has repeatedly said that is what his agency would be doing, and this Rule is the product. EPA’s basis for this Rule is a farce, and it would be laughable if it wasn’t actively threatening to undermine power grid reliability across the nation. The coalition of States we are leading is confident this Rule will ultimately be struck down on multiple grounds, and we are asking the court for a stay to ensure that the EPA doesn’t succeed in using this Rule to destroy coal-fired power plants before the merits of our legal challenges are decided.”

As the States allege in their motion, this isn’t the first time EPA has leveraged the MATS Rule to force coal-fired power plants to shut down. The last time EPA issued a MATS Rule, the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately held that the EPA acted unreasonably when it failed to consider the costs the Rule would impose. But in the years that it took to reach that decision, power plants around the country were forced to spend billions of dollars or begin retirement operations to come into compliance with a Rule that was eventually deemed unlawful. In the motion filed Friday, the States allege that EPA is trying to do the same thing again, except that this time our country’s power grids do not have the same buffer of dispatchable energy that they did a decade ago, so the situation is even more dire than before.

A copy of MATS Motion to Stay is attached.

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