WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, today released the below statement on the D.C. Circuit’s ruling against the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Rule—a commonsense alternative to the Obama-Biden era Clean Power Plan (CPP):
“The D.C. Circuit’s striking down of the ACE Rule today—timed by the panel’s liberal majority for the last full day of the Trump administration—is a disaster for regulatory certainty in the power sector, particularly for coal production and generation states. Specifically, this decision disrupts West Virginia’s regulatory program, which was nearing finalization and predicated on the ACE Rule. The timing precludes the Trump EPA from addressing the purported issues and provides a rationale for the Biden EPA immediately to try to advance a new rule. The Biden EPA must not follow the path of the disastrous and so-called ‘Clean Power Plan,’ which was an unrealistic, illegal regulation that would have strangled West Virginia’s energy economy before it was stopped by the Supreme Court. I will have pointed questions for the Biden administration and its nominees concerning its plans and their legality as it relates to regulating the power sector to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
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