The growing controversy over the degree to which environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council influenced EPA’s new carbon emission regulations for existing power plants ratcheted up today.  Coal lobby American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity blasted EPA for comments made in an internal memo – “obtained” by The Hill about the New York Times’ story that claimed NRDC heavily influenced EPA’s proposed regulation.

It does not appear this will extend much passed bitter exchanges of words, but it would be interesting if pro-fossil fuel interests used the allegation as the foundation of a legal challenge to EPA’s proposed rule.

Read more about potential legal challenges to the rule on Breaking Energy here.

“EPA has long colluded with environmental groups like NRDC, and we’re simply not buying claims that ‘broad stakeholder input’ guided the agency’s newest carbon regulations, considering EPA’s and NRDC’s proposals bear an undeniable resemblance. The Obama Administration has once again been caught with egg on its face, and rather than owning up, EPA has launched a witch hunt aimed at discrediting a reputable journalist who simply had the tenacity to investigate and expose the truth. EPA’s feathers may be ruffled, but American consumers who will be forced to face the costly consequences of the agency’s carbon regulations deserve greater transparency in what has been, so far, alarmingly elitist and politicized policymaking under President Obama.” – Laura Sheehan, senior vice president for communications at the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE)