Chris Horner sees a slight problem with EPA's attempt to decide how Americans get their energy. I'll give you a hint, it ain't legal.
Wall Street Journal (5/1/24) op-ed: "The Environmental Protection Agency last week finalized a “suite of rules” governing electricity producers. The EPA first announced these air, soil and water regulations two years ago, as tools to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by forcing coal-fired power plants to close prematurely. The rules reflect the Biden administration’s 'whole of government' approach to imposing its climate agenda, which puts ideological ambition above the limits of congressionally delegated authority. Soon after the EPA announced this plan in 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court in West Virginia v. EPA struck down the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which also sought what the agency calls 'generation shifting,' from fossil fuel to renewables. The court found no evidence that Congress had granted the EPA the sweeping power of 'deciding how Americans will get their energy.' This signaled trouble ahead for the Biden strategy, which relied on what was already creative rulemaking in the express pursuit of precisely that goal. Following that defeat, the EPA labored to shield these rules from that same constitutional challenge. But a standard employed by the Supreme Court against supposedly deceitful conduct during the Trump administration should doom the effort...Bureaucratic workarounds of agencies’ limited delegations of power are an affront to the judiciary and to 'our democracy.' The Biden backdoor climate gambit is a good place to draw the line."
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"With soaring demand for electricity, America is already facing energy poverty in the years ahead. The new EPA rule will make the problem far worse, creating in the years ahead many of the same problems that people keep warning will come from climate change 100 years from now."
– Mario Loyola,
Competitive Enterprise Institute
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