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Chamber Tries to Save Trump Power Plant Rule With or Without Him

Chamber Tries to Save Trump Power Plant Rule With or Without Him

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has gone to court in defense of the Trump administration’s plan to ease limits on power plant emissions, a move that would ensure the nation’s top business lobbying group has a say on the matter even if President Donald Trump loses reelection next year.

The chamber filed a motion with a Washington-based appeals court on Tuesday seeking to intervene in defense of the Environmental Protection Agency’s new rule, which is being battled by a coalition of public health groups.

The business group had effectively taken the side of Trump’s EPA in a related lawsuit challenging the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. That sweeping but now-scrapped regulation encouraged states to pare greenhouse gas emissions by shutting coal plants, adopting renewable electricity production and boosting energy efficiency. The chamber’s latest move, if approved by the court, would give the group a greater ability to participate in oral arguments, appeal decisions and continue litigation over the Clean Power Plan’s replacement, a more narrowly drawn measure that encourages efficiency upgrades at individual electric plants.

The chamber’s move is less a sign of doubt that Trump will win a second term and more of an insurance policy in case he doesn’t. Environmentalists took a similar tack in the waning years of former President Barack Obama’s administration, intervening to defend his Clean Power Plan from legal challenges brought by state attorneys general and the Chamber of Commerce. Now, Trump’s conservative allies will increasingly turn to the courts to buttress his administration’s regulatory pivots on pollution, financial oversight and other issues.

“Being an intervenor preserves all of our options” and “enables the chamber to continue to be involved in whatever form or fashion litigation might take over the next few years.” said Steven Lehotsky, senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center.

Neil Bradley, the chamber’s executive vice president, said the action is consistent with the group’s belief “that climate change is real, that man is contributing to it and that government has an obligation to help address it.” But, he said, “that can’t mean that agencies can simply do anything they want, without regard to the law.”

The Chamber of Commerce argues the EPA overstepped its legal authority with the Clean Power Plan by trying to force wholesale changes in the U.S. power mix. By contrast, the group asserts, the Trump administration’s replacement Affordable Clean Energy rule stays within the bounds of the EPA’s legal powers.

The case is American Lung Association v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 19-1140, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (Washington).

To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer A. Dlouhy in Washington at jdlouhy1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net, Susan Decker

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