Biden Targets Power Plant Emissions After Earlier Rules Lockdown

The Biden administration has unveiled new proposals to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, nearly a year after the Supreme Court overturned an earlier attempt.

According to the rules announced by Environmental Protection Agency On Thursday, coal- and gas-fired generators will be subject to new standards that will mark the first time the US government has directly regulated carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants.

The standards are based on two technologies that have not yet proven cost-effective: carbon capture and storage and low- and zero-produced hydrogen emissions.

“The public health and environmental benefits of this proposed rule will be enormous,” he said Michael Reganothe administrator of the EPA.

But the emissions impact of the rule, carefully tailored to survive another court challenge, is likely to be limited. EPA said the proposal related to coal and new gas-fired power plants would avoid up to 617 million tons of CO₂ total by the end of 2042. That’s less than half of the 1.5 billion tons emitted by the electricity sector last year alone.

Thursday’s announcement follows a Supreme Court ruling last summer that reduced the agency’s ability to regulate emissions from power plants. The high court, in a Opinion 6-3, reversed an Obama administration effort to limit emissions from power plants. Although the rule never went into effect, the decision stated that Congress had not given the EPA broad authority to regulate emissions from the energy sector.

President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan was stalled before it could be implemented. A replacement rule issued by the Trump administration, known as the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, was also suspended in court and referred back to the EPA. The agency said it was eliminating that rule outright.

Regan said the new proposals followed EPA regulators’ “traditional approach” under the Clean Air Act and would not trigger the same legal issues faced by the Supreme Court.

The EPA said the new limits “would require ambitious reductions in carbon pollution based on cost-effective, proven control technologies that can be applied directly to power plants.” In a statement, it added that it has undertaken an analysis showing that power companies could implement the standards with “negligible impact” on electricity prices.

The ruling was welcomed by environmental and climate advocates. “EPA’s proposed rule sends an unequivocal signal to American power plant operators that the era of unlimited carbon pollution is over,” said Dan Lashof, US director of the World Resources Institute.

The coal industry was quick to condemn it. “Principal [the use of carbon capture] under regulation before this technology is technically and economically fully demonstrated is nothing more than illegal spectacle reinforcing a destructive agenda,” said the National Mining Association.

Joe Manchin of the coal-rich state of West Virginia, who is the Democratic chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said he would block every candidate from the Biden administration to EPA because of the rule.

“This administration is determined to advance its radical climate agenda and has made clear that it is determined to do everything in its power to regulate the shutdown of coal- and gas-fired power plants, regardless of the cost to safety and security. ‘energy reliability,” Manchin said.

The United States has pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to 52% from 2005 levels by 2030. The country is on track for a 31% to 44% reduction, according to research from the Rhodium Group.

The remaining reduction in emissions depends on US passage of federal regulations to limit emissions from power plants and reduce those from cars and trucks.