WASHINGTON, D.C. (WBOY) — Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) Thursday announced that she plans to lead efforts through the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed power plant regulations that critics of the plan worry will force the closure of coal and gas-fired power plants.

The draft of the rule was released on Thursday, and Nexstar affiliate The Hill is reporting that the proposal seeks to limit carbon dioxide from existing coal plants, as well as new natural gas-powered plants and some large existing gas plants.

The Hill reports that those coal and natural gas-powered plants would be expected to cut 617 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air between 2028 and 2042, a regulation that could lead to some coal plants deciding to shut down.

Capito said that 90% of West Virginia’s electric grid is generated by coal. Locally, the Harrison Power Station in Haywood, the American Bituminous/Perennial Power plant in Grant Town, and the Fort Martin Power Station and Longview Power plant in Maidsville, are coal-powered.

The state’s coal-fired power plants would be caused to close by 2032, Capito said during a press briefing, because the carbon capture technology that the EPA’s rules require is not being used at U.S. power plants.

Capito said she expects the plan to face “enormous” legal challenges and wants a more gradual transition, allowing fossil fuel plants to retire from age.

“I don’t know where this will put West Virginia except in the crosshairs of a destruction of jobs, competitiveness and other areas where we will be severely punished,” Capito said. “And some of the things that the administrator said about this—that this is not supposed to be a sacrifice—I think he needs to re-read some of his own statistics and realize that a more gradual or transitional type period is what we really need.”

Capito said she doesn’t want more warnings like the one residents received the weekend of Christmas 2022, when West Virginia’s electric grid operator asked residents to conserve power because high demand could necessitate short, rotating customer outages.

She said she thinks some Democrats, including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), would be willing to support the CRA.

The West Virginia Coal Association (WV Coal) released a statement on Thursday saying that it believes the rules are “specifically designed to shut down West Virginia’s nine coal-fired power plants and many more across this nation,” calling it a “continuation and escalation of the national Democratic Party’s decades-long War on Coal and threatens the livelihood of tens of thousands of West Virginians.”

WV Coal is also predicting that “Americans will continue to pay increasingly more expensive power bills” and that West Virginians will lose jobs while “energy security in the United States will become more dependent on foreign countries and potentially foreign adversaries.”

This comes at a time where the price of electricity has already increased by 48% since the beginning of 2020, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Environmental activist group Young Evangelicals for Climate Action is applauding the move, saying, in part, “The proposed standards will prevent 1,300 premature deaths, 800 hospital and ER visits, more than 300,000 asthma attacks, 38,000 school absences, and 66,000 lost workdays in the year 2030 alone. In addition to saving lives, the standards are estimated to yield huge savings, with nearly $85 billion in health and climate benefits for all over the next two decades.”

Capito raised concerns that those benefits will not come to West Virginia.

“If you look at the growth in renewables—which I welcome and embrace and have helped through my committees—to try to enhance—and that’s a good thing in West Virginia and across the country,” Capito said. “The problem is they don’t have the transmission lines that have to go forward for these renewable projects, and so that’s a long way off from actually seeing reality.”

If the rule is finalized, it would be the first time the federal government has restricted carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants.