EPA Director Says Her Agency Will Prevail in Clean Power Plan Fight

 

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While Oklahoma and dozens of other states are fighting the Environmental Protection Agency over its war against coal-fired electric-generating power plants, EPA Director Gina McCarthy is professing the legal fight will not delay the country’s accelerating shift to cleaner sources of energy.

The Associated Press reports it’s what McCarthy said over the weekend at Climate Action 2016, a conference in Washington on global warming. She also vowed the U.S. will meet its obligations to cut carbon emissions as agreed to in the climate treat signed last year in Paris.

Oklahoma and other states filed suit over the Clean Power Plan and the U.S. Supreme Court has banned implantation of the new rules until the case is settled.

McCarthy told the conference she believes the court will uphold the regulations, adding that market forces are already phasing out coal-fired power plants due to wind turbines and solar generation.

“The market right now is saying that coal isn’t competitive,” stated McCarthy. “It’s saying it louder and clearer every day.”

She said electric utilities are receiving a strong message that the economic and social costs of relying on dirty fossil fuels will only increase.

“You can keep talking to the climate deniers, if you can find them,” said McCarthy. “But I think most people, including in the states that are suing us on the clean Power Plan, want climate action, and they want us to regulate the fossil industry for carbon pollution.”