(Reuters) - The Environmental Protection Agency and about two dozen Democratic states have told the U.S. Supreme Court that it should reject a bid by Republican states to limit the agency"s power to regulate carbon emissions from power plants under the Clean Air Act, because the case fails to challenge any rule on the books. The EPA in a court filing on Tuesday told the high court that it should toss a petition by nearly two-dozen Republican states that argues that Congress did not clearly authorize the EPA to exercise "unbridled" power to regulate greenhouse gases under the CAA. The red states appeal a lower court ruling that struck down an industry-friendly Trump-era rule that adopted weak carbon emissions standards, mainly for coal-fired power plants, the so-called Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule. The lower court, however, paused the full implementation of its ruling to give the EPA time to issue a new rule targeting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, which Biden"s EPA is currently drafting. Biden is pursuing a climate agenda that seeks to phase out coal consumption. EPA"s filing said the Republican states, as a result, lack the necessary legal standing to pursue the case because no rule governing emissions under the CAA is left in place. The Democratic states, including New York and California, urged the justices to affirm the lower court"s ruling because the ACE rule erroneously "barred States and sources from relying on" measures to reduce their carbon emissions such as interstate cap-and-trade programs. The case is West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Supreme Court, Nos. 20-1530, 20-1531, 20-1778, and 20-1780. For West Virginia, et al.: Lindsay See with the Office of the West Virginia Attorney General For Environmental Protection Agency: Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar For State of New York, states and municipalities: Steven Wu of the Office of the New York State Attorney General