Cities and States Are Split Over Obama's Clean Power Plan

When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the Clean Power Plan, it was destined for legal controversy. Not only does the policy form the spearpoint of President Obama’s strategy of fighting climate change through executive actions, it regulates carbon emissions from power production as a pollutant and requires each state to cut those emissions. That will mean the biggest shakeup in how the nation produces energy since the grid was built.

State governments swiftly launched a counterattack. Led by coal-producing West Virginia, 26 attorneys general have filed suit against the CPP, arguing it will wound the coal industry, make electricity more costly, and reduce the grid’s reliability. But even as lots of local leaders at the state level pushed back against the new policy, many officials at the municipal level embraced it with open arms.