Correction appended.

Three groups of challengers to U.S. EPA's climate program have asked a federal court to place the agency's newly finalized greenhouse gas regulations on hold until the court makes a decision.

As the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia prepares to consider claims about the legality of the agency's climate rules, plaintiffs are asking for a stay that would block the agency's first-ever greenhouse gas regulations from taking effect next year.

The three motions, which were filed yesterday, offer a peek at legal arguments that the plaintiffs intend to put forward.

In each of three filings, the challengers lambaste EPA's efforts to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, saying the agency has failed to look hard enough at the costs and benefits of greenhouse gas regulations for stationary sources. They also claim the agency has set an unreasonably strict time frame for compliance by state regulators, threatening to bring construction to a halt in states that cannot meet the deadlines.

One of the three motions was filed by a coalition of large business groups led by the National Association of Manufacturers. The motion, which was joined by representatives of the petroleum and mining industries, challenges EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's recent suggestion that EPA's rules will continue providing far more benefits than costs.

"Today's forecasts of economic doom are almost identical, word for word, to the doomsday predictions of the last 40 years," Jackson said Tuesday at an event celebrating the Clean Air Act's 40th anniversary. "This broken record continues despite the fact that history has proven the doomsayers wrong again and again" (Greenwire, Sept. 15).

But because the agency has not released a cost-benefit analysis for its stationary source rules, it is unclear whether the regulations will have the same effect, the groups argue in their motion.

"If the EPA moves forward and begins regulating stationary sources, it will open the door for the agency to regulate everything from industrial facilities to farms to even American homes," NAM President John Engler said today. "The EPA has not done any required analysis of the impact of these rules, and its actions will harm our economic recovery at a time when we desperately need jobs."

Those industry groups are not challenging April's "auto rule," which set greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and light-duty trucks. The main trade groups representing automakers have lent their support to EPA's greenhouse gas regulations.

Texas, advocacy groups weigh in

Another motion, submitted by a coalition of small-government advocacy groups, asks for all four of the rules climate rules finalized by EPA this year to be delayed. So does the state of Texas, where Gov. Rick Perry (R) has been among the most vocal critics of the agency's climate program.

The rules are December's "endangerment finding," which determined that greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare; March's "triggering rule," which reconsidered a George W. Bush-era memo outlining when stationary sources would become subject to greenhouse gas regulations; and May's "tailoring rule," which limited the newly triggered stationary source rules to the largest emitters.

The advocacy groups, which include the Coalition for Responsible Regulation and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, focus their criticism on the tailoring rule, which raised the amount of emissions that a facility would need to release to become subject to greenhouse gas regulations.

That rule showed that the Clean Air Act is "so poor a framework for GHG regulation that EPA ultimately admits the impossibility of applying some of its sections without having to violate others," the groups argue.

"EPA is proceeding under interpretations of the CAA by which it could choose to regulate just about any human activity in the U.S., strictly or loosely or not at all, on whatever schedule it chooses," the motion says. "The immediate result of EPA's choices is a permitting program that imposes impossible obligations on the nation's industrial base and the states as permitting authorities, which EPA does not even try to justify with any quantifiable environmental benefits."

The motion from the state of Texas challenges the agency's analysis of the scientific evidence for climate change, which provided the basis for the regulations.

It criticizes EPA for continuing to rely on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change after the discovery of errors in the report. Inquiries into the panel raised some concerns about the panel's review procedures, though they concluded that the errors were minor in the broader scope of the report.

"By delegating its judgment on climate science to the IPCC and others, EPA exposed its conclusions to the errors and biases of unaccountable volunteer scientists, and undermined the validity of the endangerment finding," the motion by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) says.

Click here to read the industry groups' motion.

Click here to read the advocacy groups' motion.

Click here to read Texas' motion.

Correction: The original version of this story incorrectly listed the "endangerment finding" among rules for which the industry groups are seeking a stay.