EPA’s Clean Power Plan Tougher Than Expected
The Obama administration unveiled a much-anticipated, controversial rule on the regulation of greenhouse gases from power plants on August 3.
The first-of-their-kind limits on carbon pollution from existing power plants will actually require slightly tougher cuts than the original proposal. The EPA is calling for a 32 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from power plants below 2005 levels by 2030. That is up from the 30 percent target as part of last year’s proposal.
However, the EPA did throw the industry, and its opponents in Congress, a bone.
In the final rule, the Obama administration will allow for two extra years for utilities to hit their interim targets of achieving a 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gases, with a deadline of 2022 instead of 2020. The EPA also offered up a “reliability safety valve,” which would allow states more leniency with deadlines in the event that the reliability of the electric grid came into question.
Under the final rule, the administration also decided to give new nuclear power plants credit towards the federal emissions target, as nuclear generates electricity without carbon emissions. That probably won’t be an avenue that many states pursue outside of a handful of nuclear power plants under construction in Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina.
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The EPA estimates that the so-called “Clean Power Plan” will cost $8.4 billion annually by 2030 when implemented, but yield public-health and other benefits of $34 to $54 billion, including avoiding thousands of premature deaths each year.
The plan will accelerate a trend towards cleaner sources of electricity. The plan expects renewable energy to more than double its share of the electricity market, jumping from 13 percent in 2014 to 28 percent by 2030.
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