PITTSBURGH (TNS) — Owners of Pennsylvania coal-fired power plants, a coal industry trade group and labor unions that represent their workers filed a lawsuit Monday to stop the state from enforcing new rules that will require fossil fuel power plants to pay to release carbon dioxide.
It is the second case seeking to overturn the cornerstone of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s climate policy, which took effect on Saturday.
In the first case, brought by Republican leaders of the General Assembly, supporters of the rule are rushing to help in its defense, including nuclear, renewable energy and efficiency companies, environmental groups and law experts.
The rules make Pennsylvania the nation’s largest electricity producer to put a price and gradually declining cap on planet-warming emissions from its power plants. It also links Pennsylvania with 11 other states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which runs a shared market for the credits that the plants must buy for each ton of their carbon pollution.
The coal interests in the new lawsuit in Commonwealth Court include owners of the Keystone and Conemaugh coal-fired power plants in Armstrong and Indiana counties, GenOn Holdings, which operates seven natural gas and oil-burning power plants in the state, the Pennsylvania Coal Alliance and the labor unions the United Mine Workers of America, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers.
They argue the rules amount to an unauthorized tax and go beyond the scope of the state’s air pollution law. They also argue that the rules are causing them “immediate and irreparable” harm because they will make their power plants less competitive, which could lead to closures, job losses and lower sales of Pennsylvania-mined coal.
In the other case, Constellation Energy, which is an owner of the Limerick and Peach Bottom nuclear power plants and the Muddy Run hydroelectric plant in Pennsylvania, is seeking to intervene to defend the rules. The company, which was recently spun off from Exelon Corp., argues any delay will harm it and other power producers that emit little to no carbon dioxide when they generate electricity.
The regulation is both legal and in the public interest, it said. Delays “would deprive the general public of the immediate environmental and health benefits” of the regulation as well as its revenues.
A Commonwealth Court judge has scheduled a hearing for Monday on Senate Republicans’ petition to block the regulation from being implemented while courts consider whether to overturn it. The coal interests are seeking a similar immediate injunction in their case.
