Twenty-four states have filed lawsuits against Barack Obama’s rules for cutting carbon pollution from power plants, the first wave of a much-anticipated legal and political onslaught against his climate change plan.



The challenge filed on Friday asked a federal court in Washington DC, to strike down the power plant rules, thus gutting the heart of Obama’s climate plan.



John Hoeven, a Republican Senator from North Dakota, said on Friday he would introduce two separate resolutions challenging the rules for new and existing power plants. He said in a statement that the rules would make it virtually impossible to build new plants in his state.

Administration officials have said repeatedly they believe they are in a strong position to beat back both sets of challenges.



But the lawsuits and the initiatives in Congress send a powerful message to the international community ahead of the Paris climate conference next month that Obama faces significant opposition to his efforts to cut America’s carbon pollution and sign on to a global deal to fight climate change.



Obama is leaning heavily on the power plant rules as evidence of his efforts to fight climate change in the US – and so help lead other countries to an international agreement. In addition to their efforts against the EPA rules, Republicans in Congress are trying to block Obama from joining an international climate agreement without first securing Senate approval.



The EPA rules under attack on Friday would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants by 32% by 2030 on 2005 levels, delivering the biggest single cut in America’s carbon pollution.

In the first wave of lawsuits, filed in the US court of appeals for the DC circuit, the states and Murray Energy Corp, a coalmining company, accuse the Environmental Protection Agency of exceeding its authority by requiring states to lower their carbon pollution, a standard which will compel power companies to shutter coal-fired power plants and source more of their electricity from cleaner forms of energy.



“The Clean Power Plan is one of the most far-reaching energy regulations in this nation’s history,” Patrick Morrisey, West Virginia’s attorney general, said in a statement.

He called the rules a “blatant and unprecedented attack on coal”.



Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming, the Arizona corporations commission, and the North Carolina department of environmental quality have also joined the lawsuit.



The National Mining Association, a leading coal lobbying group, also sued the EPA on Friday.



Gina McCarthy, the EPA administrator, said the agency was on solid legal ground.



“The Clean Power Plan has strong scientific and legal foundations, provides states with broad flexibilities to design and implement plans, and is clearly within EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act,” McCarthy said in a statement.

“We are confident we will again prevail against these challenges and will be able to work with states to successfully implement these first-ever national standards to limit carbon pollution, the largest source of carbon emissions in the United States.”

Obama launched his climate change plan in mid-2013, and the EPA rules were issued in early August. But the lawsuits could not go ahead until Friday, when the rules were finally published.



In addition to the legal challenges, Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, has said he will invoke a little-used piece of legislation that enables members of Congress to vote down new rules by a simple majority.



The White House has said it would veto any effort in Congress to overturn the EPA rules.



Republicans are also trying to block the US from signing on to a climate deal in Paris by requiring Obama to submit any agreement to approval by the Senate.

“I believe we, as the Senate, should support basic oversight responsibilities,” Jim Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, said this week. “President Obama and his administrative officials are going out of their way to circumvent the role of the US Senate in this negotiating process.”