Inhofe Statement on EPA’s Request to Delay Court’s Legal Decision on the Clean Power Plan

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, chairman of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, released the following statement after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requested the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to not make a decision on the legal challenges facing the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan until after the United Nation’s climate conference concludes in Paris this December:

“The Clean Power Plan is on legally vulnerable ground, and the agency knows it. The EPA has been slow walking the publication of the Clean Power Plan in an attempt to delay the inevitable, and now is asking the federal court to delay next steps on the rule's legal challenges until after the international climate talks in Paris. While procedural gimmicks may preserve the opportunity for a nice press release from Paris, it will not prevent congressional opposition and the courts from substantively pulling the breaks on the Obama administration's unauthorized course of action.”

Background: 

On July 8, Inhofe led ten Senators in a letter to President Obama requesting a detailed response for how the U.S. will plan to meet a pledge of 26-28 percent emissions reduction by 2025, as represented by the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Senators are still awaiting the president’s response.

Also on July 8, Mr. David Bookbinder, former Sierra Club chief climate counsel, testified before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, that the president’s goal would fall dramatically short of meeting the U.S. target of cutting emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.

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