Speaking two days after the Supreme Court ordered a stay of her agency’s historic carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said the stay would not stop the nation’s shift away from fossil fuels.
“If you ask me am I disappointed in the Supreme Court decisions to stay the Clean Power Plan, my answer would be absolutely yes. Why not? I really wanted to be the one to sign that first [state] plan approval. But does it stop or even slow down this country in terms of our transition to a low-carbon future? Absolutely not,” she said Thursday during a presentation at the National Association of State Energy Officials Energy Policy Outlook Conference in Washington, D.C.
She went on to note that massive emissions reductions have been achieved without the Clean Power Plan and that they are likely to continue. “For crying out loud, the United States over the past decade has cut greenhouse gas emissions more than any nation on Earth. We didn’t have the CPP 10 years ago, and we know that the CPP was underpinning a transition that is already happening and will continue to happen,” she said.
The Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision Tuesday granted a stay of the regulation, marking a significant blow to the Obama administration’s climate agenda. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan voted against the stay while Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Chief Justice John Roberts voted to approve the hold.
The stay will halt implementation of the regulation until the challenges to the rule itself are decided by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and any Supreme Court appeals are concluded.
A coalition of 26 states, 16 trade organizations, 61 power utilities, and others filed the application for the stay with Roberts days after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals denied their petition to put a hold on the rule, which requires states to develop action plans to meet federally set, state-specific carbon emissions reduction goals. Petitioners argued that states might be forced to spend billions of dollars to come into compliance with the rule before it is judged by the Supreme Court. If the court were to overturn the rule, the states would be unable to recover those funds.
McCarthy strongly asserted that the stay should not be interpreted as a death knell for the regulation. The administrator noted there was collaboration between states and the EPA during the development of the rule, stating that the relationships forged during that time cannot be undone.
She also said the stay does not disallow states from voluntarily taking action on climate change, and that while the agency cannot implement or enforce the rule for now, it is free to assist states in plan development if requested. “Are we going to respect the decision of the Supreme Court? You bet, of course we are. But, that doesn’t mean that’s the only thing we’re working on, and it doesn’t mean that we won’t continue to support any state that voluntarily wants to move forward, and it doesn’t stop us from having incredibly fruitful conversations,” she said.
Several states, including Colorado, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Delaware, have announced their intention to continue developing plans regardless of the stay.
The EPA remains confident the rule will be supported in court, McCarthy forcefully asserted, saying the stay decision did not necessarily question the rule’s merits. “Our rule squarely fits within the four corners of the Clean Air Act, and it’s a statute that we’ve been implementing successfully for 40 years. One decision to stay doesn’t mean that the CPP isn’t alive, [that] it isn’t going to survive. It also doesn’t mean that they spoke to the merits, that is not what the decision said,” McCarthy said.