Dive Brief:

• Opponents of the Obama Administration's plan to regulate greenhouse gas emissions are preparing court challenges, and observers expect the suit to eventually wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
• So far their efforts have been rebuffed in the courts, but The Hill reports early legal challenges may have simply helped states, energy companies and business groups to focus their arguments.
• Observers say some changes from the proposed to final regulations appear to have been made to strengthen the plan's chances before the court, including removing energy efficiency as a compliance building block because of concern it oversteps the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's authority.

Dive Insight:

Before the final Clean Power Plan regulations were released, judges struck down a handful of challenges as premature, telling more than a dozen states and energy companies they would need to wait. But the final regulations are out now, and The Hill reports litigants are lining up at the courthouse steps, preparing challenges based on a range of arguments.

Chief among those will be that the EPA, a federal agency, is overstepping its authority to regulate states. Lawsuits will also focus on prohibitions on regulating a plant's emissions twice, as well as EPA's authority over what happens outside of a power plant.

To the third argument, there has been speculation that the White House removed what was known as "Building Block 4," which focused on energy efficiency, in an effort to ease the law's eventual path through legal challenges.

But regardless of how the new regulations have been tweaked, court challenges are widely seen as inevitable. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has signaled he will renew his state's opposition to the plan, calling it "fundamentally flawed and illegal." He and 14 other states have indicated they will file a legal challenge shortly.

The final rule "blatantly disregards the rule of law and will severely harm West Virginia and the U.S. economy,” Morrisey said in a statement. “This rule represents the most far-reaching energy regulation in this nation’s history, drawn up by radical bureaucrats and based upon an obscure, rarely used provision of the Clean Air Act. We intend to challenge it in court vigorously."

According to the statement, the rule is illegal because "the vast majority of the rule’s emissions reductions come from mandating that the States fundamentally alter their energy economies to consume less coal-fired energy."