AUSTIN – Attorney General Ken Paxton is praising the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to repeal the unlawful Obama-era Clean Power Plan, a “job-killing regulation” that Texas, West Virginia and 22 other states successfully challenged all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We appreciate the Trump administration’s recognition that the Clean Power Plan is unlawful and bad energy policy for Texas and the rest of the nation,” Paxton said.
“It’s gratifying that our lawsuit against Obama-era federal overreach was a catalyst for repeal of the plan. We look forward to working with the administration to craft a new strategy that will protect the environment without hurting jobs and the economy.”
Last year, Texas and the multi-state coalition won a stay in the Supreme Court against the Clean Power Plan while the case was litigated in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
On March 28, President Trump signed an executive order directing the EPA to unwind the plan. A month later, the D.C. Circuit Court placed the case on hold so the EPA would have time to review the energy regulation.
According to an Oct. 11 press release, the Clean Power Plan would have subjected Americans to higher electricity costs and could have weakened the nation’s power grid.
The Heritage Foundation estimated that the bill would have resulted in an average annual loss of nearly 400,000 jobs, increases of 13-to-20 percent in household electricity expenditures, a total income loss of more than $20,000 for a typical family of four, and an aggregate loss of over $2.5 trillion in gross domestic product by 2035.