Statement of Resource Person, Dylan Tanner
6 November 2018
were to be regulated under the EPA’s Clean Air Act as harmful
emissions, a regulation the EPA adopted in 2011. It was designed to
combat emissions from the US power sector counting for roughly a third
of US domestic greenhouse gas emissions and aimed to remove 870
million tons of CO2 equivalent (or 35% of these emissions) from the
atmosphere by 2030. 51 The Plan was repealed by the Trump
administration in 2017 following overwhelming political and legal
intervention from fossil fuel value chain interests that had begun almost
a decade prior.
Case studies complied by the Union of Concerned Scientists track the
involvement of a number of high profile organizations including
ExxonMobil, Peabody Energy, Southern Company, the American
Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), the American Legislative
Exchange Council (ALEC), and the US Chamber of Commerce (U.S
Chamber) in attacking the scientific and political foundations for the
Plan between 2007-2015.52
From 2014 onwards, the use of legal challenges was especially
important in defeating the Plan. Filings related to these cases have been
archived by US NGO the Environmental Defense Fund and are
viewable on the its website.53 Their inspection shows overwhelming
involvement of organizations in the coal, utility and industrial sectors in
legal challenges against the Plan, including Carbon Major companies
Murray Energy Company and Peabody Energy. Further to this
ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell, Peabody Energy and Southern
Company are all represented on the board of directors for the US
Chamber of Commerce, which led the lawsuit that resulted in the US
Supreme Court blocking the Plan’s implementation in 2016.54 Other
prominent legal opponents included the ACCCE, the National Mining
Association (NMA) and National Association of Manufacturers (NAM).
InfluenceMap’s systematic data gathering process has complied multiple
hundreds of evidence pieces of utility, coal, oil and industrial interests
directly opposing both the Plan and the EPA’s authority to regulate
GHG emission more broadly. The bulk of this is dated between 20132017 when the Plan was finally defeated. Carbon Majors either directly
or indirectly (through trade groups) implicated include: Apache Corp,
BHP, BP, Cenovus Energy, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, EOG Resources,
ExxonMobil, Hess Corporation, Marathon Oil, Occidental Petroleum,
Royal Dutch Shell and Total.
9) A Pattern of Deception on Climate
51
FACT SHEET: Clean power plan by the numbers, EPA Archives, accessed October 2018
52
Who’s Fighting the Clean Power Plan and EPA Action on Climate Change?, The Union of Concern Scientists, accessed October 2018
53
Clean Power Plan case resources, Environmental Defence Fund website, accessed October 2018
54
Board of Directors, U.S. Chamber of Commerce website, accessed October 2018
13