Missouri’s Democratic attorney general announced on Friday that his state will join a federal lawsuit seeking to block the implementation of controversial new Environmental Protection Agency regulations.
State attorney general Chris Koster, who is running for governor, said EPA’s new rule on power plant carbon emissions "effectively eliminates Missouri’s competitive advantage as a low energy-cost state."
Missouri will join a handful of other states that have sued to block the regulation, he announced.
The state’s utilities, including Ameren Missouri, had urged Koster to join the states — most of them Republican-led — fighting the rules. Koster, the only Democrat running for governor in Missouri, has sued the EPA over other recent regulations, including the controversial "Waters of the U.S." rule strongly opposed by large agricultural interests.
Koster made the announcement Friday in a speech at a meeting of rural electric cooperative members in Branson. He argued that the state’s businesses rely on lower-cost energy and costs would rise under the EPA’s rules, which would shift Missouri’s heavy reliance on coal power to renewables and natural gas. […]
However, Koster affirmed that he believed "climate change is real, and cleaner energy production is an important state goal." But he said energy producers were already making the shift, and he cited utility-supplied numbers that say the EPA plan will cost the state $6 billion by 2030.