At long last, US EPA officially published the Clean Power Plan (CPP) this morning in the Federal Register, 82 days after releasing a copy of the signed final rule on August 3, 2015. Publication of the rule has been covered extensively by our team in previous posts here and here.

Official publication of the rule has been already met with a flood of legal challenges and motions to stay the rule.

By this afternoon, 26 states had already filed a Petition for Review and a Motion to Stay in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The first set of 24 state motions with attached declarations is consolidated in West Virginia, et al. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency and Regina A. McCarthy under case number 15-1363, with Oklahoma and North Dakota filing separately inOklahoma et al. v. EPA under case number 15-1364 and North Dakota v. EPAunder case number 15-1380.

The 26 states and agencies are:

• Texas

• Alabama

• Arizona Corporation Commission

• Arkansas

• Colorado

• Florida

• Georgia

• Indiana

• Kansas

• Kentucky

• Louisiana

• Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality

• Attorney General Bill Schuette of Michigan

• Missouri

• Montana

• Nebraska

• New Jersey

• North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality

• Ohio

• South Carolina

• South Dakota

• Utah

• Wisconsin

• Wyoming

• Oklahoma

• North Dakota

Along with the states, this afternoon Murray Energy Corporation, the National Mining Association, and American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity filed a Petition for Review and Motion to Stay with 13 declarations attached in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit under case number 15-1366, 15-1367, 15-1368.

The Chamber of Commerce has also filed a Motion to Stay joined by 15 trade groups and a significant number of attached declarations under Chamber of Commerce of the U.S. et al. v. EPA et al., case number 15-1382. 

The Utility Air Regulatory Group and more than a dozen utilities have jointly filed a Motion for Stay, under case numbers 15-1370 through 15-1377, respectively. Petitioners include:

• Alabama Power Company

• Georgia Power Company

• Gulf Power Company

• Mississippi Power Company

• CO2 Task Force of the Florida Electric Power Coordinating Group, Inc.

• International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers, and Helpers

• Montana-Dakota Utilities Co.

• National Rural Electric Cooperative Association

• NorthWestern Corporation

• Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, Inc.

• United Mine Workers of America

• Westar Energy, Inc.

Our team will continue to track the status of these challenges closely and update regularly.