Via Tulsa World
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt spent Tuesday in court — in Washington, D.C.
“We started at 9:30 this morning, and we’ll probably go into the early evening,” Pruitt said by phone while taking a break late Tuesday afternoon.
Pruitt was among several state legal officers involved in oral arguments before the D.C. Court of Appeals for West Virginia v. EPA, a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan.
West Virginia Solicitor General Elbert Lin is the lead litigator for the plaintiffs, but Pruitt and his office have been involved in preparing a considerable part of the case.
“We’ve devoted substantial resources to the constitutional questions,” Pruitt said. “That doesn’t mean we haven’t been involved in the rest of it, but we have focused on the that particular part.”
West Virginia v. EPA consolidates several lawsuits seeking to block an Environmental Protection Agency initiative to reduce power plant carbon dioxide emissions 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.
The appeals court is expected to rule before the end of the year, with an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court likely regardless of the lower court ruling.
Implementation of the rule has been stayed by the Supreme Court pending the conclusion of litigation.
Pruitt and others argue the emission standards will drive up electric rates, threaten the power grid’s reliability and create economic havoc in West Virginia and other coal-producing regions.
Pruitt also contends the Clean Power Plan regulations create constitutional, administrative and statutory conflicts.
“This impacts consumers in a very personal way,” he said.
Tuesday’s arguments were before 10 D.C. Circuit Court judges in a courtroom packed with lawyers and other representatives from a range of interested parties, ranging from the oil and gas industry to the Sierra Club.
“We had a panel discussion about this at the National Press Club last week, and I joked that the tickets for this have been put on Stub Hub,” Pruitt said.