Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider a lower court ruling that allows a federal agency to set emission standards.
Cameron filed a brief Friday asking the court to review a D.C. Circuit ruling in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency concerning the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan.
The EPA under the Obama administration sought to curb coal emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The D.C. court ruling allowed the EPA to continue issuing those standards for the nation’s power grid.
In the brief, Cameron argues that Congress should instead be in charge of policy decisions that could impact the nation’s power plants.
“Allowing the EPA to restructure our nation’s entire energy sector to address climate change unfairly places a target on the Kentucky coal industry,” Cameron said.
Cameron said the rules would harm the state, which still heavily relies on coal power for electricity. The continued decline of the coal industry will hurt the state’s economy and increase rates for some of Kentucky’s poorest residents, he wrote in the brief.
Earlier this year, Cameron joined 21 attorneys general around the country in filing a lawsuit against President Joe Biden’s executive order that shut down the Keystone XL Pipeline.
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