Stay the course and halt the clock on the EPA’s Clean Power Plan

This commentary originally appeared in The Hill on February 1, 2016.

The legal battles over the Environment Protection Agency's (EPA) Clean Power Plan (CPP), the most sweeping regulation in the agency's history, have begun. While the EPA's crusade against carbon already leads to mounting bankruptcies and job losses before the effective dates of the rule, the District of Columbia Circuit Court last month denied a petition from 27 states to stay the legal force of the CPP until a judicial review on the merits is complete. The states have now asked the Supreme Court to impose a stay.

Beware of the EPA's sly design of the grand energy plan, even with expedited judicial review and the EPA's murky concession on extended deadlines, the plan's key compliance dates will likely toll before a final ruling by the Supreme Court — unless the rule is stayed. Indeed, a stay of the CPP is in the court's fundamental constitutional interest. If the Supreme Court wants to preserve the legal force of judicial review, stay of the rule is essential to prevent the EPA's increasingly successful circumvention of the court's restraints.

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