Several US Senators are readying a bill next week intended to block the government’s Clean Power Plan, the latest threat to President Obama’s key policy to tackle climate change.

“Next week I will be introducing greenhouse gas legislation with my colleagues that will preserve the proper balance of state and federal authority, help ensure reliable and affordable electricity and protect jobs and our economy,” Shelley Moore Capito, Republican Senator for coal-rich West Virginia, told a Senate committee hearing on Tuesdsay, according to Bloomberg BNA.

Capito chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and it is expected that the bill will resemble one being sent to the House by Kentucky Congressman Ed Whitfield after it passed the committee stage last month.

Whitfield’s Ratepayer Protection Act would delay implementation of the CPP until all legal challenges to the plan are resolved, and it would let state governors opt out of the emission requirements if they can show the rules will raise power costs for citizens or businesses or impact electricity reliability.

“If left unchecked, EPA’s proposal will set a dangerous precedent that strips states of their traditional lawmaking authority,” said Mike Duncan, president and CEO of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a coal power lobby group.

“The witnesses at today’s hearing are all too familiar with the dangerous consequences associated with letting Washington bureaucrats make policy decisions inside the bubble of the beltway,” it added in a statement.

On Tuesday, Texas became the 16th state to challenge the plan in court.

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