WASHINGTON, Oct 1 - New York's attorney general has assembled a coalition of 25 states and cities to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to repeal limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
The lawsuit, led by Attorney General Letitia James and joined by states including California and Michigan, was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. The legal action targets the EPA's rollback of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards, regulations that required U.S. power plants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the adoption of carbon capture technology.
In the filing, the coalition argues the agency revoked the standards without evaluating "reasonable alternatives" or taking into account the health and climate costs associated with permitting increased pollution. The complaint also makes clear the group will pursue additional litigation: it has filed a petition to set aside the repeal and has notified the EPA of its intent to sue over what it describes as the agency's continued failure to fully regulate pollution from existing natural gas power plants.
Attorney General James was quoted in the complaint, saying: "Dismantling these protections is a betrayal of American families, and the stakes are too high to allow this administration to once again put profits over people."
The coalition underscores the significance of power plants in the nation's emissions profile. Power generation is identified as the second largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions after vehicles and is responsible for about one-quarter of the country's carbon dioxide output.
The complaint focuses narrowly on procedural and substantive claims tied to the revocation of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards and the agency's treatment of alternatives and cost considerations. The coalition's combined legal and regulatory actions signal a coordinated effort to force the EPA to revisit both the repeal and the regulation of emissions from existing natural gas-fired facilities.
The litigation now moves to the DC Circuit, where the court will consider the coalition's arguments that the EPA's rollback was procedurally deficient and substantively flawed for failing to weigh health and climate impacts when revoking the standards.