The Natural Resources Defense Council today expressed strong support for Virginia and its attorney general, Mark Herring, for joining a coordinated effort to protect the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan from legal attacks by carbon intensive special interests. Virginia joined 17 other states, including Maryland and Delaware, plus the District of Columbia, as interveners against the fossil fuel lobby’s efforts to undermine the Clean Power Plan in federal court.
Together, eighteen states and communities home to millions of Americans intervened in support of President Obama’s signature environmental policy to combat the carbon pollution that is the biggest contributor to climate change.
The following is a statement by Walton Shepherd, a Natural Resources Defense Council attorney and Virginia policy advocate:
“Virginia’s support of the Clean Power Plan shows that Attorney General Herring understands what’s at stake for the state if we allow dangerous carbon pollution from coal-burning power plants to continue without any limits. Already we see the threats to Virginia’s economy and way of life in areas such as Tidewater, a region affected by frequent flooding and associated damage to businesses and homes in the millions, and in Richmond, which for many years has been the asthma capital of the United States. The time is now to take action for Virginia’s future, for its economy and for the health of its people.”
The states joining Virginia as interveners in the case that is now before the federal appeals court are: New York, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Hawaii and Vermont. Cities also joining the legal defense effort include: New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, South Miami, Boulder and the District of Columbia, as well as Broward County, Florida.
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