‘The war against coal is over’

Pruitt will move to rescind regulations on gas, coal plants

EPA plans to repeal rule limiting greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants.

WASHINGTON — Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt told coal miners in Kentucky on Monday he will move to repeal a rule limiting greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants, assuring them, “The war against coal is over.”

Speaking at an event in Hazard, Ky., with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Pruitt said his agency will publish the new proposed rule on Tuesday.

“Tomorrow, in Washington D.C., I’ll be a signing a proposed rule to withdraw the so-called Clean Power Plan of the past administration, and thus begin the effort to withdraw that rule,” Pruitt said.

The 43-page proposal, which was obtained by The Washington Post and other news outlets last week, argues that the agency overstepped its legal authority in seeking to force utilities to reduce carbon emissions outside their actual facilities to meet federal emissions targets.

It does not offer a replacement plan for regulating emissions of carbon dioxide, which the Supreme Court has ruled that the EPA is obligated to do. Rather, the agency said it plans to seek public input on how best to cut emissions from natural gas and coal-fired power plants.

EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said in an interview Monday that Pruitt chose to speak about his plans in Kentucky because coal workers had a direct economic stake in policies aimed at curbing emissions from coal burning.

“He’s speaking directly (to) people ... about how the rule negatively affected the whole industry,” Bowman said.

On Thursday, Bowman said any replacement rule the agency does put forward would be “done carefully and properly, within the confines of the law.”

But arguments over the confines of the law are at the heart of the long-running fight over the Clean Power Plan.

During his time in Oklahoma, Pruitt and other critics sued over the regulation, arguing that the Obama administration did not have legal authority to force states to form detailed plans to reduce CO2 emissions from such sources as coal-fired power plants.

In particular, opponents argued that the regulations required power plants to take actions “outside the fence line,” rather than regulating activities that only take place on a particular facility.

Environmental groups and other supporters argued on the side of the Obama White House, saying the administration had standing under the Clean Air Act to put in place the effort, which they called a much-needed measure to help nudge the nation toward cleaner sources of energy and improve public health.

The central case in that fight, West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, has had an unusual legal path.

Early last year, the Supreme Court blocked the regulation’s implementation after 27 states and a host of other opponents challenged its legality. Its 5-4 decision, which did not address the merits of the lawsuit, came just days before the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

With the Clean Power Plan’s future on the line, a 10-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in September 2016 held a marathon day of oral arguments on the case, trying to decipher whether the Obama administration’s proposal went too far in trying to compel power plants to cut carbon-dioxide emissions.

But that court failed to issue a ruling before the Trump administration took office and requested time to reconsider the Clean Power Plan’s future.

ADAM BEAM/AP EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, seen Monday in Kentucky, declared to miners that “the war against coal is over.”