Colorado health and environmental officials will continue working toward compliance with the controversial Clean Power Plan despite a Supreme Court decision Tuesday blocking the program’s immediate implementation.
State leaders say talks with stakeholders will be ongoing as part of efforts to meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon reduction targets for Colorado set forth by the initiative.
The nation’s top court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the plan hailed by President Barack Obama as a major effort to tackle climate change should not go into effect until after a lawsuit to block the regulations is resolved.
The initiative, sometimes called a “war on coal,” caused political turmoil in Colorado after Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, launched a failed campaign to stop Attorney General Cynthia Coffman from joining the suit.
Coffman, a Republican, says the plan is an overreach by the EPA and that’s why she joined the challenge filed by 27 mostly Republican state attorneys general. She celebrated the Supreme Court’s ruling as affirming those beliefs.
Nevertheless, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment says it will keep coordinating to follow the plan’s rules.
“It is prudent for Colorado to move forward during the litigation to ensure that the state is not left at a disadvantage if the courts uphold all or part of the Clean Power Plan,” the department said.
Kathy Green, a spokeswoman for Hickenlooper, said the governor agrees that Colorado should “stay the course” when it comes to moving forward with the program.
“While we’re still reviewing the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision, we remain committed to having the cleanest air in the nation,” Hickenlooper said in a statement. “We’ll continue to build upon the great strides we’ve made as a state.”
Coffman told The Denver Post she respects CDPHE’s role, explaining that the purpose of her joining the lawsuit was to give the state domain to determine what regulations are best for itself. She said she is confident the courts will ultimately strike down the Clean Power Plan for infringing on states’ sovereignty.
“In the end, it will be up to our state and not the federal government,” Coffman said. “In the meantime, the Supreme Court’s order preserves the status quo to ensure no state is harmed while the courts consider the merits of this legal challenge. “
Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, a Westminster-based wholesale electric power supplier that owns several coal mines on the Western Slope, lauded the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The energy cooperative called the decision a “monumental step forward in the effort to stop the costly and legally flawed regulation.”
“This is a tremendous victory for our members who rely on fossil fuel generation as a source of affordable and reliable power, the employees who work at our plants and coal mines and the communities where our operations are located,” Mike McInnes, chief executive officer of Tri-State, said in a statement.
State officials’ decision to move forward also comes as Colorado House Democrats passed a bill Tuesday to add measurable goals and deadlines to the state’s plan to fight climate change.
Without a single Republican vote in the House, however, the bill would appear to be doomed as it moves to the Republican-led Senate.
The Clean Power Plan targets existing coal-burning power plants to cut carbon emissions nationwide by 32 percent before 2030 against 2005 levels. In Colorado, the plan calls for a 28 percent reduction in overall carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 against 2012 levels.
The EPA says the delay imposed by the Supreme Court could postpone those reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or @JesseAPaul
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
