(ARLINGTON, Va.) — The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) today expressed deep disappointment with a federal court’s refusal to halt implementation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan. NRECA last November petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to stay implementation of the rule while a separate battle over its legality plays out.
“Charging ahead with implementation of the Clean Power Plan will cause immediate and irreparable harm to America’s electric co-ops,” said Debbie Wing, NRECA director of media relations. “While the rule’s emission reduction requirements don’t kick in for several years, co-ops must start taking immediate costly and irreversible steps to achieve the goals set forth in the EPA’s overreaching regulations. The result will be lost jobs, economic harm to rural communities and significant electric rate increases for some of our nation’s most vulnerable citizens—families living on fixed incomes or in poverty.”
Also last November, 39 generation and transmission cooperatives joined NRECA in petitioning the court to review and ultimately reject the Clean Power Plan. A decision in this case may come later this year or early 2017.
The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national service organization that represents the nation’s more than 900 private, not-for-profit, consumer-owned electric cooperatives, which provide service to 42 million people in 47 states.