Attorney General Alan Wilson joins letters rebuking EPA's proposed rule of power plants

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) – Attorney General Alan Wilson joined two different multistate coalitions opposing the Biden Administration’s U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule on existing coal-, natural gas- and oil-fired power plants.

The proposal attempts to regulate those plants under the Clean Air Act by imposing more stringent emissions standards. But the proposal ignores the 2022 rebuke from the U.S. Supreme Court in West Virginia v. EPA, which warned the EPA cannot use a narrow regulatory provision to force coal-fired power plants into retirement en masse.

“This is yet another example of the Biden Administration’s pattern of governing through regulatory fiat. Federal agencies are again trying to rewrite the law to achieve their own agenda,” said Attorney General Alan Wilson. “The EPA’s latest proposed rule would be catastrophic to South Carolina and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of energy production and use.”

The letters explain how the proposal violates the Supreme Court’s decision on West Virginia v. EPA because Congress, still, hasn’t given EPA clear statutory authorization to remake the electricity grids. This means the agency cannot sidestep Congress to exercise broad regulatory power that would radically transform the nation’s energy grids—and force states to fundamentally shift their energy portfolios away from fossil fuel-fired generation.

Although potentially unknown to many, the EPA’s proposed rule would directly affect South Carolinians and is why Duke Energy, Dominion Energy, the Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, Santee Cooper, and the South Carolina Office of Regulatory Staff also submitted separate public comment letters expressing concerns over the proposed rule. Many utility companies in South Carolina, and across the country, are already in the process of lowering emissions, but the EPA’s rule ignores those practices and would prevent them from continuing.

Read the Ohio-led letter here.

Read the West Virginia-led letter here.

Find all publicly submitted comments here.