Financial Times: State, Pruitt At Center Of Clean Air Act National Lawsuit
Obama’s climate change legacy at risk from conservative heartland
by Barney Jopson in Oklahoma City ©Bloomberg
President Barack Obama’s attempt to leave a legacy of domestic action on climate change faces a proliferation of legal threats just as a global climate deal hangs in the balance, according to a state lawyer fighting the White House.
Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma’s attorney-general, said that a Thursday court hearing on plans to slash greenhouse gas emissions from coal power plants was only “round one” in a fight he is leading from the US’s conservative heartland.
Mr Pruitt argues that the president’s green regulator, the Environmental Protection Agency, is breaking the law by imposing state-by-state targets for cuts in carbon dioxide emissions and denying state governments a final say.
If his arguments prevail in the courts it will be a devastating blow for Mr Obama, jeopardising his effort to leave a legacy of decisive action on global warming with a policy dubbed the Clean Power Plan.
“What we see with the current EPA approach is almost an attitude that the states are a mere vessel of federal will,” Mr Pruitt said in his Oklahoma City office. “The [EPA] cannot simply bypass the statute. The process matters. And they have breached that with this proposed rule.”