CEI Responds to Dismissal of Murray Energy Lawsuit Against EPA

Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute Marlo Lewis responded today to a federal appeals court decision to dismiss a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed power plant rule:

“After reviewing the oral argument, it is disappointing, though no surprise, that the Court, purely for reasons of judicial restraint, declined to rule on the merits of the lawsuit against EPA. The basic legal theory underpinning EPA’s Clean Power Plan is for all intents and purposes a final agency action, and we’ve already seen harm to petitioner Murray Energy from EPA’s proposal. I am confident that the Murray petitioners will eventually prevail and the rule will be overturned.”

Will Yeatman, CEI’s senior fellow specializing in environmental policy and energy markets added:

“The court did not tip its hand regarding the merits of the petitioners’ challenge to the rule, which was based on the argument that EPA lacks the authority to issue the Clean Power Plan. If the rule is promulgated in August, as expected, opponents of the Clean Power Plan will immediately have the opportunity to test their argument again and seek a stay of the regulation.”

Chris Horner, senior fellow with CEI said:

“By not agreeing to hear the merits of an agency action whose harms are already being felt, the court is encouraging activist agencies to act unlawfully or overreach in the hope that they can achieve their objectives, in this case to "bankrupt" an industry and cause electricity rates to "necessarily skyrocket", just by trying.

By refusing to hear the merits when the harms that are intended are already being felt, this encourages and enables activist bureaucrats and regulators to try and win by proposing rules, no longer just by succeeding.”