Austin Knudsen, the attorney general of Montana, joined 20 other attorneys general this week in requesting that the US Environmental Protection Agency drop a proposed rule that would significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the energy sector.
The signatories contend in a 55-page letter dated Aug. 8 that a rule the Biden administration unveiled in May represents an illegal overreach of the EPA's jurisdiction and an effort to get around a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. That decision was critical of the executive branch's attempts to "generation-shift," or move the energy industry away from fossil fuels that cause global warming.
The EPA portrayed the regulation at the time it was released as a measure that would "protect public health, reduce harmful pollutants, and deliver up to $85 billion in climate and public health benefits over the next two decades." The government stated in a fact sheet regarding the regulation that the largest stationary source of greenhouse gas emissions, which accounts for 25% of domestic emissions in 2021, is the electricity industry. With "proven and cost-effective control technologies" as its foundation, the rule would transform the energy industry by establishing new limitations on greenhouse gas emissions for the majority of new and existing coal, gas, and oil-fired power plants.