CHEYENNE – Wyoming has filed two lawsuits against the federal government seeking to overturn new rules enacted by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Gov. Mark Gordon announced the lawsuits Thursday challenging the EPA’s new rules, which he says target Wyoming’s coal and natural-gas fired power plants. 

Wyoming joined a coalition of 24 states Thursday in challenging the Biden Administration’s recently released power plant regulations. The states argue that the new rule exceeds EPA’s authority and ignores the United States Supreme Court’s 2022 decision vacating Obama-era greenhouse gas limits for power plants. The suit asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review and declare the regulations unlawful.

Wyoming and 22 other states filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging another EPA rule that would require certain air emissions from coal-fired plants to be reduced drastically, with no corresponding health benefits and with great costs to Wyoming and its industries.

“The Biden Administration’s EPA seems determined to use unlawful rulemaking to continue its attacks on Wyoming’s core industries,” Gordon said. “The only goal appears to be destroying Wyoming’s fossil fuel industry by further burdening our power plants, increasing costs to consumers, and threatening the stability of our nation’s electrical grid.”