McConnell tells states to stop planning for EPA climate rule

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is telling state officials to stop their work toward complying with the Obama administration’s climate change rule for power plants. In a Monday letter to all of the country’s governors through the National Governors Association, McConnell said the Supreme Court’s decision last month to halt the Clean Power Plan validated his earlier advice for states to ignore the regulation and not try to comply. McConnell told the governors that he’s always felt the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) carbon limits violate the law. “This is precisely why I suggested a ‘wait-and-see’ approach with respect to the CPP last year,” he wrote. “Given the Supreme Court’s recent stay of the CPP and the painful lessons of [the mercury and air toxics standards], ‘wait-and-see’ remains the most responsible approach today,” he said, referring to an earlier EPA rule that the high court found to be illegal. McConnell has been one of the loudest voices advocating for states to resist complying, which he says is one of the most effective ways to fight the rule. While few states were open to the idea, numerous states’ leaders decided after the Supreme Court’s stay that they would stop planning for compliance, reasoning that the regulation is much less likely to survive the litigation process on its merits. But the Obama administration has pushed back, encouraging states to keep up their efforts to comply and arguing that they’ll be thankful when the courts side with the EPA...more