Dive Brief:
- The Texas Public Policy Foundation is proposing a multi-state compact aimed at blocking the Clean Power Plan's proposed emissions limits, with member states agreeing not to submit to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's emissions limits.
- Opponents call the plan a “desperate ploy,” according to EnergyWire, and say the group doesn't speak for the average citizen in Texas.
- The Lone Star State has hinted it may refuse to file a compliance plan, but that would mean a federal plan would be instituted and some fear harsher cuts under that scenario.
Dive Insight:
The Texas Public Policy Foundation has penned a fiery “interstate power compact” aimed at rallying states to fight the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan.
Banking on the Tenth Amendment and calling for the “preservation of individual liberty,” the group is calling on states to refuse to submit compliance plans to the EPA unless the emissions limits or budgets are “derived only from assumptions of what is technically achievable inside the physical boundaries of the electrical generating units using the same fuel and boiler design that is currently in place.”
And the group calls on Congress to approve the compact, after which the EPA would be “prohibited from imposing any measures under a federal plan with respect to a member state.”
A few states have considered not filing compliance plans. Oklahoma says it will refuse, and Kentucky gubernatorial candidates are backing that idea as well. In West Virginia, lawmakers passed a proposal saying the legislature must sign off on any plan.
In Texas there have been rumblings about noncompliance, but lawmakers are worried a federal plan would enact stricter regulations than a state strategy. The federal government is targeting a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 by regulating existing power plants.
Texas office of Public Citizen Director Tom Smith told EnergyWire the compact is "another desperate ploy" from the group, which he said represents coal and oil interests more than average citizens.
"They're living in fantasyland again," he said.