Gordon: Wyoming files additional lawsuit challenging new EPA rule

CHEYENNE (WNE) — Gov. Mark Gordon announced Thursday that Wyoming has filed an additional lawsuit challenging a new rule from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) targeting the coal industry.

Wyoming has joined West Virginia and Georgia, along with 19 other states, in challenging EPA’s new steam electric power generating effluent guidelines. The rule was part of a package of rules affecting power plants the EPA released in late April.

“EPA’s rule mandates costly, infeasible technologies that are designed to force the early retirement of traditional electric power plants, rather than any genuine scientific interest in protecting human health and the environment,” a news release from Gordon’s office said. Wyoming’s lawsuit argues that the final rule exceeds EPA’s statutory authority, and is otherwise arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and not in accordance with law.

“Yet again we are compelled to challenge the unlawful and ill-conceived rulemaking of the Biden administration’s EPA to defend the interests of our core industries, including coal, as well as protect consumers from burdensome regulations that increase energy costs and threaten our nation’s energy supply, while doing little or nothing for the environment,” Gordon said in the release.

Wyoming’s participation in the lawsuit is funded through a bill passed by the Legislature and signed by Gordon in 2021. House Bill 207 created the coal-fired facility closures litigation funding account.

This story was published on May 31, 2024.