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In 2015, the NAM challenged the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, a rule that went beyond the EPA’s legal authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act. Before the rule became effective, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the rule pending the resolution of the litigation. Then, in 2017, the D.C. Circuit held the litigation itself in abeyance to allow the incoming administration to decide whether to rescind or revise the rule. The EPA proposed a replacement rule—the Affordable Clean Energy Rule—in August 2018. A final rule issued in June 2019. With the Clean Power Plan rule replaced by the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, the parties moved to dismiss the case. On September 17, 2019, the court dismissed the case as moot.

The NAM petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to issue an administrative stay to delay the effective date of the Clean Power Plan rule until a court rules on the rule’s legality. The rule, issued as a regulation of greenhouse gases from electric utility generating units, went much further than regulation of electric power plants. If the rule were to take effect, manufacturers would see their costs increase and some trade-exposed industries might be forced to relocate production overseas. The NAM’s petition argued that 1) the rule was already causing irreparable harm by forcing the closure of vast numbers of existing coal-fired generating units, constituting the backbone of the American electric grid; 2) that legal challenges to the rule are likely to prevail in court, since the Clean Air Act expressly forbids EPA from regulating existing fossil fuel-fired generating; and 3) the rule imposed standards of performance for the entire energy sector, rather than only for the individual sources of greenhouse gases from the power plants themselves. Although the EPA denied our petition, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a nationwide stay of the rule on Feb. 9, 2016, until the litigation over the rule is completed. Further developments in this case can be found .