No matter how the Donald Trump presidency plays out, or whether the Clean Power Plan survives, the Midwest power grid will see dozens of older coal-fired power plants shut down in the next few years. The region's grid operator, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), can keep plants running if they are necessary to keep the lights on. But when it comes to knowing which ones will close, and when, will the public be left in the dark?

States, industry groups and power companies yesterday fired their opening shots in the legal battle over the Obama administration's carbon rule for new power plants.

BISMARCK, N.D. — Cartwheeling wind turbines dot the green prairies outside North Dakota's capital, and as the state's "energy trail" snakes northward, billowing coal plants pop up in the distance. The scenery is a reminder of the challenges ahead for North Dakota, a state whose deep reserves of fossil fuels stand in contrast to federal climate regulations with requirements to decrease the release of greenhouse gases.

A Colorado-based organization this week released a modeling tool for 12 Western states considering how they might meet power-sector carbon reduction goals under U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan.

A former North Dakota electricity regulator who now represents the state in Congress says if the Clean Power Plan falls to legal challenges, he would want to "clean up" the rule's underpinning statute.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Frank Kohlasch, one of the lead architects of Minnesota's compliance strategy for the Obama administration's signature climate regulation, had just arrived at St. Cloud State University last Tuesday when news broke that the Supreme Court had slammed the brakes on the federal effort.

Officials from blue, red and purple states signaled interest yesterday in continuing planning for power-sector carbon reductions, despite a Supreme Court ruling putting the Clean Power Plan on hold.

U.S. EPA needed thousands of pages to lay out its ambitious, highly complex strategy to force blue states and red states to figure out how to curb greenhouse gas emissions from their power plants. The Supreme Court has plunged the entire endeavor into uncertainty with a single page.

North Dakota has joined more than two dozen other states in pressing the Supreme Court to put the brakes on the Obama administration's signature climate change rule.

A Colorado-based group coordinating Clean Power Plan talks in the West yesterday released the first phase of a modeling tool for states and utilities.

Key utilities and regulators in North Dakota are arguing desperate times may call for desperate measures as the state figures out how to comply with the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan.

A North Dakota Republican bemoaning the demise of his state's coal industry under the Clean Power Plan said yesterday that he would be open to replacing the greenhouse gas rules with a carbon tax.

The lone Republican on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission told House members today that it may be difficult for some states to sync construction timelines for new gas pipelines and transmission lines with U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan.

A Midwestern grid operator with territory in many states opposing U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan is pressuring state governments to submit compliance plans in order to ensure electric reliability.

The governors of two coal-dependent Western states, Wyoming and North Dakota, believe they have a strong case to make to the Obama administration about the extra time they need to comply with U.S. EPA's new rule to slash CO2 emissions from power plants.

North Dakota's congressional delegation and governor met yesterday with U.S. EPA air chief Janet McCabe to register their concerns about how her agency's Clean Power Plan would affect their state.

BISMARCK, N.D. -- Gov. Jack Dalrymple plans to meet with top U.S. EPA officials next week to protest how his state was treated in the final version of the Clean Power Plan.

A science advocacy group yesterday released an analysis of U.S. EPA's final Clean Power Plan determining that a handful of states that oppose the rule are nonetheless making significant progress toward compliance.

When U.S. EPA released its long-awaited final Clean Power Plan last week, it was immediately clear that states would face vastly different obligations than they had been preparing for under the 2014 draft rule.

MILWAUKEE -- A report by consultants at the Analysis Group concludes the sprawling area served by the MidContinent Independent System Operator shouldn't see reliability problems as a result of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan.

While Republicans in Congress strategize about how to gut carbon regulations for power plants, at least one among them has had some direct exposure to the critical choices states will have to make if U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan moves forward.

At least 41 states are in talks with neighbors about how they might cut power-sector carbon emissions under U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, despite appeals from Republicans in Congress for state officials to refuse to comply, according to regional coordinators.

States in the Midwest have asked U.S. EPA to create a set of rules for a voluntary carbon trading scheme, an option many feel would be one of the least expensive ways for states to reach emissions reductions under EPA's proposed Clean Power Plan.

Three additional states have passed laws granting legislators input on how their state responds to U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan. But unlike the law West Virginia enacted earlier this year, the new measures fall far short of model legislation promoted by the influential American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.

ST. LOUIS -- The changes in power plant fleets that will be required by U.S. EPA's Clean Power plan are too much, too fast, and threaten electric affordability and reliability, a group of utilities and state regulators from up and down the nation's central corridor said here yesterday.

There's little disagreement that U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan will be a catalyst for continued development of the massive wind energy potential of the nation's central corridor.

A rollicking amendment process of the type Democrats avoided when they controlled the Senate is providing an opportunity to begin building a beachhead around Obama administration rules sure to come under fire throughout the year.

Amid the barrage of public criticism, political sword-rattling and legal challenges that surround U.S. EPA's proposed Clean Power Plan, a group of environmental regulators and utility commissioners from 14 states has been quietly at work in the background, in search of ways to cooperate on implementation.

Attorneys general from 17 fossil-fuels-heavy states submitted joint comments to U.S. EPA yesterday, decrying its Clean Power Plan proposal as a bid to usurp state authority over the power grid.

U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan tramples states' authority over their own power sectors, would drive up costs and is based on unsound science, outgoing Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ranking member David Vitter (R-La.) argued in comments submitted to the agency today.

U.S. EPA signaled this week that its final Clean Power Plant rule would be asking less of states early on to reduce emissions of power plants' greenhouse gases.

U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan underestimates states' capacity to ramp up renewable energy in the coming years and assigns them inappropriately easy carbon reduction targets as a result, a science advocacy group says.

Senior U.S. EPA personnel spent much of the summer briefing states about the agency's proposal to limit greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants, according to new entries posted to the draft rule's docket.

A draft U.S. EPA guidance meant to facilitate the capture, storage and reuse of power plants' carbon dioxide emissions has fueled concerns in the energy industry while environmental groups are largely supporting the effort.

Under the Clean Power Plan -- U.S. EPA's ambitious proposal to curb greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants -- states are asked to meet widely divergent targets. Some, like North Dakota and Kentucky, would have to cut carbon intensity by less than 20 percent; others would have to hit reduction targets of more than 40 percent. Given the number of factors at play in determining each state's carbon intensity rate, the formula used by EPA is understandably complex. Over the past month and a half, state agencies have been working their way through it in order to recreate the agency's findings, and while most have found the basic formula to be sound, some are hesitating to endorse the logic behind it.

Reactions to U.S. EPA's proposed carbon rule for power plants came fast and furious from politicians, industry groups and environmentalists in the wake of -- and even ahead of -- the rule's release Monday.