25 States Sue EPA Over Power Plant Carbon Rule Repeal

A coalition of 25 states, cities and counties filed a petition Oct. 1 challenging the EPA's repeal of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice has joined a coalition of 25 states, cities and counties challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's decision to repeal greenhouse gas pollution limits for coal- and gas-fired power plants. The coalition filed a petition for review on Oct. 1 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, asking the court to overturn the repeal of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards and restore the limits. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul argued the EPA should be protecting communities from pollution rather than removing environmental safeguards.

What makes the challenge notable is that the coalition did not stop at defending the old rule. It also notified the EPA of its intent to sue over what it called the agency's continued failure to regulate greenhouse gas pollution from existing natural gas power plants, including "peaker" plants that run during high-demand periods. According to the Daily Dodge, the coalition said many of those facilities are located in low-income communities and communities of color, and that the EPA set standards for new gas-fired plants more than a decade ago without establishing similar limits for existing ones.

In its petition, the coalition argues the EPA unlawfully repealed the pollution standards without adequately considering alternatives or the health and economic costs of allowing additional emissions, and failed to properly calculate the costs of repealing the rule. According to the Wisconsin DOJ as reported by the Daily Dodge, power plants produce about one-quarter of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions, and a 2024 Center for Climate Integrity report estimated Wisconsin communities could face more than $16 billion in climate protection costs. The department also cited a 2020 University of Wisconsin report finding extreme heat kills more Wisconsin residents than other weather disasters combined.

The stakes of rising emissions are being measured at the ecosystem level too. The CORDIS-reported EU-funded PALOMA project, led by MSCA fellow Dael Sassoon and supervised by CSIC scientist Encarni Montoya, built what researchers call the most comprehensive modern pollen database for the Amazon basin, sampling in Ecuador and Peru to model how lowland plant species respond to shifts in temperature and rainfall. The team says the modelling software, vegetation data and methodological improvements will be openly available so others can build on the infrastructure.

The case now heads to the D.C. Circuit, where the coalition — attorneys general from 20 states plus the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania's governor, the mayors of New York City and Chicago, and the City and County of Denver — will seek to have the repeal overturned. Separately, the notice of intent to sue over existing gas-fired plants tees up a second front if the EPA does not move to regulate those facilities. Meanwhile, the PALOMA team plans to expand its pollen database into under-sampled parts of Amazonia and continue monitoring pollen production at sites such as Ecuador's Tiputini Biodiversity Station.