Republican state attorneys general want a federal appeals court to stop EPA’s new rule on air pollution from power plants from taking effect.
In a motion filed Friday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 23 states led by North Dakota and West Virginia said the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, or MATS, will force power plants into early retirement and jeopardize grid reliability.
They told the court that there is “no relevant public health benefit” from EPA’s new requirement to reduce hazardous air pollutants and asked that the rule be set aside before parties in the litigation duke it out over the rule’s merits.
Even if EPA’s challengers eventually win, the states said, “that victory will be meaningless absent a stay, because to comply the with Rule’s three-year deadline for implementing the mandated changes (or retiring if they cannot), power plants need to take action immediately.”
