From Lisa Demer in Juneau:
The U.S. Supreme Court Monday heard a major challenge to the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency and former Alaska Attorney General Dan Sullivan -- now a U.S. Senate candidate -- says he "originally brought" the case.
Not quite.
The case concerns whether EPA has authority to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases from industrial facilities such as power plants.
Alaska is one of a number of states that joined in the industry-led challenge to EPA's authority.
Texas took the lead for the states before the Supreme Court. Alaska joined with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Farm Bureau's challenge to EPA. Sullivan's campaign said later on Monday that Alaska's legal argument differed from the Texas-led effort, but it was heard in court.
Sullivan still had a big role, said his campaign spokesman, Mike Anderson, pointing to a New York Times story from 2010 that quoted Sullivan when Alaska jumped into the case.
Alaska intervened in March 2010 in a lawsuit that challenged how EPA was expanding its authority over greenhouse gases. The state wasn't challenging the science of climate change, but rather EPA's position that the Clean Air Act's permitting provisions allowed it to broadly regulate greenhouse emissions.
"The EPA's continual overreach and overregulation of the nation's economy will be on full display during today's U.S. Supreme Court proceedings," Sullivan said Monday in a written statement.
Reach Lisa Demer at 952-3965, ldemer@adn.com or on Twitter, @lisa_demer.
Anchorage