One of the most important roles a state’s attorney general can play is to go to bat for rank-and-file consumers. All the more so, when like-minded attorneys general from a number of states band together to champion consumer interests nationwide. It has happened on more than a few occasions over the years, with AGs of both political parties, from states in just about every region, taking up common cause in legal actions on wide-ranging issues, from tobacco to health care.
Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman’s decision to join 23 other states in mounting a constitutional challenge to the Obama administration’s controversial, onerous and costly Clean Power Plan represents precisely such an initiative. More to the point, it amounts to probably the best, and perhaps last, hope for Colorado consumers against the crippling federal mandate and its Draconian carbon-emission standards.
Coffman’s support for the legal action—filed last month in federal court in Washington, on the same day the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published its final rules for the plan—warrants praise and surely deserves thanks from our state’s hard-pressed utility ratepayers.
In a statement widely reported by the media last week, Coffman observed, “Coloradans value the environment, and our state continues to be a national leader in establishing clean energy standards. We’ve proven again and again that good environmental policy can be developed and implemented successfully by Coloradans, and within the bounds of the law. This rule fits neither description.”
Nor does it serve consumers.
As we have noted often, the Environmental Protection Agency’s unprecedented new policy will hit Colorado like a hurricane in the high country. The proposed federal mandate will impact every type of consumer—residential, small business, agricultural and industrial—in every community in Colorado. It will blindside consumers served by public utilities, municipal providers and rural cooperatives. And the changes to Colorado’s statewide power generation implicit in the EPA’s mandates may ultimately cost Colorado consumers many billions of dollars.
Alongside those concerns, the plan is being foisted upon states in a way and at a pace that afford them little time and—despite promises to the contrary—little leeway to mitigate the impact on ratepayers. Efforts to develop an implementation plan in Colorado that would allow for more checks and balances and input from consumers, so far, have been stalemated.
In that light, criticism of Coffman’s decision by Gov. John Hickenlooper and former Attorney General Ken Salazar seems puzzling. As well, their recent public statements disputing Coffman’s authority to proceed appear to lack a sound legal footing. The governor announced he will ask the Colorado Supreme Court to weigh on Coffman’s powers in this matter, and as reported in the Denver Post, Salazar called Coffman’s legal challenge “out of step with the role and responsibilities of an attorney general.”
That Colorado’s attorney general, an independently elected officeholder, may of her own initiative join in a federal court challenge of this nature is by all accounts well-established legal doctrine. Our state’s constitution, statute and court precedent all reinforce that view—as evidenced by the fact that previous Colorado AGs have joined other multi-state lawsuits.
As for objections from some quarters that Coffman’s initiative could disrupt Colorado’s development of a compliance plan for the EPA mandate, Coffman correctly points out that the state’s policy makers in the General Assembly and the executive branch can attend to that task while the states’ litigation moves forward. And as Coffman also notes, if the courts grant the states’ request in their litigation to suspend federal compliance deadlines while the merits of the challenge are considered, it could spare Colorado and other states from spending time and money on rules that ultimately may be found invalid.
The states challenging the plan in court alongside Colorado are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming and Wisconsin. North Dakota and Oklahoma are challenging the federal rule in a separate legal action. All told, that’s a broad swath of Americans who are standing up to the EPA’s impending mandate.
We wish Coffman and the other attorneys general well in this epic challenge. They are defending our nation’s Constitution as well as its energy consumers—a worthy fight.