Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton today announced that Texas and West Virginia are leading a 24-state coalition that filed a lawsuit challenging the Obama Administration’s Section 111(d) Rule, an unlawful plan to radically restructure the way electricity is produced and consumed throughout the country. The Rule, as promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), would result in dramatically higher electricity bills and significantly less reliable service for families, businesses, hospitals and schools across America.
“Once again, President Obama and his EPA have overstepped their legal authority and enacted a regulation that will dramatically raise Texans’ electric bills and threaten the reliability of the electric grid,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. “The Texas Attorney General’s Office is leading a nationwide coalition, along with West Virginia, to prevent massive increases in electric bills that would hurt hard-working families, the elderly and the poor.”
EPA is seeking to reduce carbon emissions from electric-generating plants by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. To achieve these reductions, EPA will require states to shut down coal plants prematurely and invest billions of dollars in new renewable generation.
On Oct. 16, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) released a report that said EPA’s Rule would increase retail electric prices by up to 16 percent by 2030, not including costs for new transmission lines and other costs needed to comply with the Rule.
As explained in the documents the States filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, EPA has no legal authority to promulgate or enforce the 111(d) Rule.
Other states participating include: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming.