Your Opinion: AG urged to seek delay of EPA rules

Dear Editor:

Earlier this summer the United States Supreme Court ruled that the EPA must take into account the economic cost prior to passing rules that limit the emissions of power plants.

Our electric companies have already invested millions of dollars in complying with these rules and we are all paying for this rule in our utility bills. Dismissing the Constitution and the legislative process, the Obama administration is forging ahead with the Environmental Protection Agency's overreaching clean power plan.

This power grab is exactly why attorneys general from across the country are banding together to stop this plan from being implemented. I urge Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster to stand with the other states that are trying to delay this rule until the challenges to its validity have been ruled upon.

Koster's responsibilities as our attorney general include defending us from illegal federal overreach and protecting Missouri consumers from unfair practices. EPA's regulation is both. It would not only overstep constitutional limits on the administration's power to make policy but also hit Missouri electricity consumers with expected rate increases of at least 12 percent, according to a study of the proposed plan.

That would deal a significant blow to the competitiveness of Missouri businesses and to job creation. The effects of EPA's regulation, however, would fall most heavily on families, particularly those who struggle now to pay for basic necessities.

Almost 55 percent of all Missouri families are low or middle income and they already spend one-fifth of their after-tax income on energy bills. EPA's costly plan will be devastating to them.

Attorney General Koster, we need your help. Stand up to EPA and tell it Missouri will not submit to this illegal regulation.

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