State AGs vow to defend US climate regulation

A group of US states attorneys general have announced they will work together, “protecting and building upon the recent progress the United States has made is combating climate change.” The group includes the attorneys general of New York, Vermont, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts and Virginia.

According to a press release, the participating officials are “exploring working together on key climate-related initiatives, such as ongoing and potential investigations into whether fossil fuel companies misled investors and the public on the impact of climate change on their businesses.”

The group is also part of a wider coalition of states, cities and counties that have submitted a brief with the DC Circuit Court defending the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan against legal challenge.

“With gridlock and dysfunction gripping Washington, it Is up to the states to lead on the generation-defining issue of climate change,” said New York Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman. “We stand ready to […] fight any efforts to roll-back the meaningful progress made over the past eight years.”

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy criticised the attorneys general, however, accusing them of going “off on a quixotic journey to solve a problem that barely cracks the list of priorities for the average American, when instead they should be protecting their constituents by working to defeat EPA’s costly power plan.”

The inconvenient truth is many of our top state officials remain intent on wasting taxpayer dollars by moving forward with a plan that has been placed on an official hiatus by the US Supreme Court until it rules on the plan’s legality,” the ACCCE continued. “The stay was clear – states need not comply with this expansive federal overreach while its constitutionality is questioned. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and his allies should serve their states by putting their pens down.”

Edited by Jonathan Rowland.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcoal.com/power/30032016/state-ags-vow-to-defend-us-climate-change-regulation-2016-485/