FRANKFORT, Ky. (Dec. 6, 2024) – Attorney General Russell Coleman announced today a major victory for Kentucky families, entrepreneurs and utility ratepayers. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit unanimously sided with Kentucky to reject the EPA’s attempt to overreach into the Commonwealth’s stewardship of its air quality.
In Kentucky v. EPA, the Sixth Circuit ruled the EPA unlawfully disapproved Kentucky’s plan to set its own air quality standards. The Commonwealth used the EPA’s guidelines to submit a “state implementation plan.” Even though Kentucky met the federal government’s standards, the EPA rejected the plan by applying new standards, which the court called “bait-and-switch tactics.” Twenty other states had their plans rejected by the EPA.
Although courts across the country have temporarily blocked the EPA’s disapproval of those state plans, Kentucky is the first of those states to secure a final decision from a court. If the EPA’s rule had been allowed to go into effect, it would have undermined Kentucky jobs, potentially shut down coal-fired power plants and increased costs for families.
“Today’s ruling is a warning to Washington bureaucrats: the era of foisting a radical green agenda on what they deem as 'fly-over' is officially ended,” said Attorney General Coleman. “Kentucky is fully prepared to be good stewards of our air, land and water, and the EPA must respect our ability to do just that. We will continue our efforts to protect Kentucky’s affordable and reliable energy, encourage new growth and unleash American energy dominance.”
“[A]s a sovereign entity, Kentucky possesses the ‘primary responsibility’ to regulate pollution emitted from its borders and the discretion to decide how best to meet air-quality standards. Kentucky placed this important regulatory interest on the line when it chose to rely on EPA’s 2011 modeling. And it lost that interest when the EPA used newer data to disapprove its plan and to impose a federal plan that took the Commonwealth’s regulatory discretion,” the opinion reads.
Kentucky Solicitor General Matt Kuhn argued the case before the Sixth Circuit in May.
This is the second time the Sixth Circuit has ruled against the EPA in this case. In June 2023, the Sixth Circuit stayed the Biden-Harris Administration’s rejection of Kentucky’s air quality plan.
Solicitor General Kuhn presented the Commonwealth’s case. Executive Director of the Attorney General’s Office of Rate Intervention John Horne and Assistant Solicitor General Jacob Abrahamson assisted in the matter.
Read the opinion.