Cases

According to the Department of Energy, power plants release over 40% of our country's total carbon dioxide emissions, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Coal-fired power plants are responsible for nearly 80% of this total output of CO2 by the energy industry, yet the Environmental Protection Agency issued a rule in February 2006 that included no regulation of carbon dioxide emissions from steam generating units at coal-fired power plants. In April 2006, Earthjustice, representing Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club, filed litigation in federal court challenging EPA's refusal to set any limit on power plants' greenhouse gas emissions. Eleven states, including New York and California, the cities of Washington, D.C. and New York, and the Natural Resources Defense Council also joined in the lawsuit.

Global warming is an international environmental threat. Scientists from all over the world agree that harmful pollution from cars, power plants and other industrial sources are rapidly raising global temperature levels, contributing to rising sea levels, droughts, and habitat loss. Earthjustice has brought numerous cases calling upon EPA and other international government agencies to adopt stronger protections against harmful greenhouse gas emissions. The United States Supreme Court is going to hear this fall a case we brought against the EPA for its refusal to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted from motor vehicles.

This current case challenges an EPA rule that refused to require the strongest and most effective pollution controls for new power plants. EPA said in its proposed rule that it does not have authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide pollution from power plants. However, the Clean Air Act is very clear in establishing EPA's authority to set standards for "air pollutants," a term the law defines as "any air pollution agent of combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical... substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enter ambient air."

The Department of Energy, in a September 2006 presentation, estimated that there are currently 154 new coal-fired power plants being proposed for construction. Texas and Illinois alone are proposing 29 new coal-fired power plants. If EPA's rule were allowed to go forward as written, these plants would have no obligation to control their greenhouse gas emissions.