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Washington • In what environmentalists hailed as a victory for efforts to curb climate change, an appeals panel in Washington on Thursdayrebuffed efforts to delay enforcement of President Barack Obama's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions until legal challenges are resolved.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an order denying requests for a stay that would have barred the Environmental Protection Agency from implementing the Clean Power Plan.

The plan has been challenged by more than two dozen mostly Republican-led states, including Utah, and allied business and industry groups tied to fossil fuels. The states deride the carbon-cutting plan as an "unlawful power grab" that would kill coal-mining jobs and drive up electricity costs.

"This is a huge win for protecting our health and climate from dangerous carbon pollution," said David Doniger, director of the Climate and Clean Air Program at the advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council. "The court has brushed aside the polluters' bogus bid to block the Clean Power Plan, and the electricity sector will continue the shift from its high-pollution, dirty-fueled past to a safer, cleaner-powered future."

Thursday's order allows federal regulation of carbon emissions pending the court's review of the case, set for June 2.

But the order to deny a stay shouldn't change anything in Utah, said Donna Spangler, a spokeswoman for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. The state always planned to move toward complying with the plan despite the ongoing litigation, she said.

"While we want to preserve our right to join opposition, we're still planning ahead," she said. "We're not going to stop and wait to see what happens."

Spangler said the DEQ has already begun work on the state's clean power implementation plan in order to have a first draft ready for a September 2016 deadline. The first stakeholder meeting regarding the plan is already scheduled for Feb. 2.

Elsewhere, other opponents to the plan expressed disappointment with the court's decision. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, whose state is heavily reliant on coal mining, said his office will consider urging the U.S. Supreme Court to halt what he termed the "ongoing, irreversible harm" caused by the new federal regulations.

Implementation of the rules is considered essential to the United States meeting emissions-reduction targets in a global climate agreement signed in Paris last month. The Obama administration and environmental groups also say the plan will spur new clean-energy jobs.

The federal plan aims to stave off the worst predicted impacts of climate change by reducing carbon dioxide emissions at existing power plants by about one-third by 2030. The plan also encourages further development of alternative energy sources such as wind and solar by further ratcheting down any emissions allowed from new coal-fired power plants.

Late last year, Salt Lake City joined roughly 19,000 other U.S. municipalities as a "friend of the court" in the clean power case, signing a motion that argued that the Clean Power Plan was necessary to prevent increased air pollution, longer droughts, more frequent and severe storms, degraded ecosystems and a potential loss of human life.

— Tribune reporter Emma Penrod contributed to this report