One of the key rulings from this year’s U.S. Supreme Court term could shed light on how the court may act on requests to stay the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s power plant rules, according to U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.

Capito, during her weekly media briefing Thursday, said the high court’s ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which resulted in the overturning of a 40-year-old legal doctrine known as “Chevron deference,” could be telling.

“Chevron deference,” established following Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council Inc. in 1984, said courts should defer to the judgment of federal agencies when interpreting laws.

In its ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimond, the court said judges can make their own interpretations and don’t have to consider an agency’s interpretations.

“This issue with the ‘Clean Power Plan’ that’s been put forward by President Biden is: Does it overstep its regulatory authority?” Capito said.

“So let’s go back to a decision that the Supreme Court made several months ago called the Chevron decision, which basically will not allow the executive branch to keep overstepping their authority from what Congress has given them,” she said.

Based on that ruling, she expects the Supreme Court to determine the EPA’s rules represent an overreach of the executive branch’s authority, Capito said.

“I hope they place a stay on it so we don’t have to go forward with it. It’s an illegal power grab,” she said. “We need to be legislating and regulating from the Congress in these areas.”

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey on Tuesday announced the state had joined 26 other states in filing motions asking the Supreme Court to issue a stay against the agency’s rules while other legal challenges play out.

The move came just days after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected a request to block the rules.

The attorney general has cited the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in West Virginia v. EPA as a likely indicator of how it may rule.

“The landmark West Virginia v. EPA is clear that Congress placed real limits on what the EPA can do, and we will ensure those limits are upheld,” he said.

Chris Hamilton, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, on Wednesday said his organization is also calling on the Supreme Court to issue an emergency stay.

“Our utilities, and ultimately the public, shouldn’t be forced to waste hundreds of millions of ratepayer dollars to attempt to comply with a rule that ignores the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in West Virginia v. EPA,” Hamilton said.

The EPA’s suite of final rules, first released at the end of April, include requirements for existing coal-fired and new natural-gas-fired power plants to control 90% of their carbon pollution.

The agency said the rules are intended “to protect all communities from pollution and improve public health without disrupting the delivery of reliable electricity.”

Implementing the rules will negatively impact both West Virginia and the nation, Hamilton said.

“West Virginians will lose jobs. Americans will continue to pay increasingly more expensive power bills,” he said. “Our nation’s electric system will become even more unreliable. And energy security in the United States will become more dependent on foreign countries and potentially foreign adversaries.”