Trump EPA Scraps Obama's Clean Power Plan to Ease Rules for Coal-Burning Power Plants
By Tracie Mauriello
June 20, 2019 - Former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan is going up in smoke as the Environmental Protection Agency scraps it in favor of new guidelines that give states more flexibility and that don’t include carbon capture sequestration or cap-and-trade systems favored by the Obama administration.
Signed Wednesday, the new rule is a step toward fulfilling President Donald Trump’s campaign promises to bring back coal, and it was well received by Republican lawmakers and energy producers in coal country.
“Appalachia has a long history of mining that we’re proud of. Our mining fueled the industrial revolution and helped us fund two world wars,” said U.S. Rep. Glenn “G.T.” Thompson, R-Centre. “It’s critical we continue to support a diverse energy mix and base load power, which includes continued use of coal.”
Democrats are pushing back hard and environmental groups are expected to challenge the rule in court.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the rule a “dirty power scam” and “a stunning giveaway to big polluters, giving special interests the green light to choke our skies, poison our waters, and worsen the climate crisis.”
Under the new Affordable Clean Energy rule, or ACE, states would develop their own standards based on a list of technologies and systems that the EPA has determined work best environmentally and economically.
Carbon capture and sequestration, a preferred technology under the Obama administration, did not make the list because the EPA believes it is not technically feasible and cost efficient, a senior agency official told reporters Wednesday morning. The EPA also rejected fuel switching – for example forcing plants to burn gas instead of coal – as well as cap and trade systems, which set limits on emissions and allows companies to buy permits to exceed them.
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former lobbyist for the coal industry, said the Clean Power Plan had been an overreach and that it harmed the economy while doing little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The new rule “gives states the regulatory certainty they need to continue to reduce emissions and provide a dependable, diverse supply of electricity that Americans can afford,” Mr. Wheeler said.
“Fossil fuels will continue to be an important part of the mix,” he said at a rule signing ceremony
A stream of Republican lawmakers joined him at EPA headquarters for the signing.
“Today’s announcement paves the way for the kinds of regulatory certainty that states and the private sector needs to confidently invest in new technologies to continue to provide affordable, reliable energy,” said U.S. Rep. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc. “We needed commonsense regulations that protect our national security, public health and public safety while positively advancing a vibrant economy.”
U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters, said later in a statement: “This is good news for both Pennsylvania families, who will see lower energy bills, and for domestic energy producers, who will no longer be handcuffed by burdensome and costly bureaucratic mandates. I am grateful to President Trump for his continued commitment to Pennsylvania coal jobs and the communities they support.”
Democrats held their own conference later on Capitol Hill.
“This new plan demotes the current emissions standards, which were real, to a mere suggestion. That’s not what the federal government should be doing. This is a matter of public health,” said U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the Affordable Clean Energy rule is neither affordable nor clean.
“It’s a huge step backward in the decade-long effort to protect our planet,” he said. “We’ve begun to make some progress and now they’re undoing it.”
Any progress hasn’t been the result of regulation, said the senior EPA official. He attributed it instead to market forces and innovation that would have occurred anyway.
“There are fundamental changes happening in the power sector that have everything to do with market economics and the shale gas boom,” said the official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named.
Mr. Wheeler projects the new rule will reduce the country’s U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 35 percent below 2005 levels by the year 2030. That, he said, will result in annual net benefits of $120 million to $730 million, including economic, health and climate benefits.
Environmental groups are dubious and prefer the Clean Power Plan’s approach to transitioning from fossil fuel to clean energy.
“Trump and Wheeler are pushing a plan that will lead to thousands of deaths while ignoring the public’s demands for aggressive climate action, just so a handful of wealthy coal executives can make a little more money,” said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune.
“Rather than listening to science and the public by taking climate action, Trump and Wheeler’s dirty power plan throws out some of the most important climate policies our country has ever seen and replaces them with a do-nothing policy that will actually increase pollution at many plants,” Mr. Brune said. “Coal executives are getting exactly what they paid for, and everyone else is getting sick and ripped off.”
Rob Altenberg, director of the energy center at the environmental group PennFuture, said inaction is creating a climate-change crisis.
“We will see more pollution under the ACE rule than if the EPA did nothing, which is the very definition of a rollback. With Pennsylvania and the world facing ever more dangerous impacts from climate change, Wheeler’s disregard for his responsibilities as EPA administrator is unconscionable,” Mr. Altenberg said.
The Obama rule, adopted in 2015, sought to reshape the country’s power system by encouraging utilities to rely less on dirtier-burning coal-fired power plants and more on electricity from natural gas, solar, wind and other lower or no-carbon sources.
President Trump has rejected scientific warnings on climate change, including a report this year from scientists at more than a dozen federal agencies noting that global warming from fossil fuels “presents growing challenges to human health and quality of life.”
The EPA’s own regulatory analysis last year estimated that the ACE rule would result in 300 to 1,500 more deaths per year by 2030, owing to additional air pollution from the power grid.
Business leaders in Pennsylvania and elsewhere support the new rule.
“A free and competitive energy market delivers emissions reductions when government is not picking winners and losers, and individuals are free to choose which energy source best fits their needs,” said Kevin Sunday, a lobbyist for the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry. “By setting standards that did not take into account what was achievable at individual facilities, the Clean Power Plan was overly aggressive and far reaching.”
So far, 12 Pennsylvania power plants have shut down coal-fired generating units since 2010 and another three have converted to natural gas.
By encouraging utilities to consider spending money to upgrade aging coal plants, environmental groups argue, the Trump rule could prompt the companies to run existing coal plants harder and longer rather than retiring them.
“We ought to be providing the right market signals today for clean energy tomorrow,” said U.S. Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del.