How Stringent Are the US EPA’s Proposed Carbon Pollution Standards for New Power Plants?

The passage of national climate policy legislation has proven elusive in the United States. In one of the leading efforts, in 2009, the US House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act. Although the legislation did not become law, it would have established targets for the reduction of domestic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and achieved them primarily through a cap-and-trade system. Among the key targets were a 17 percent reduction in emissions from 2005 levels by 2020 and an 80 percent reduction by 2050. In the Senate, the American Power Act was introduced as a draft bill in 2010 and also sought to establish a capand-trade system with similar emission targets. However, a vote was never taken despite much political attention during the summer of 2010. In the absence of legislation, responsibility for implementing climate policy has fallen to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The process began in 2007, when the Supreme Court ruled that CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) qualify as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. The EPA was ordered to determine if these pollutants pose a threat to public health and welfare, in which case regulation would be required (see Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497, 2007). In 2009, the EPA issued the finding that current and projected concentrations of GHGs do in fact endanger public health and welfare. Then in 2010, the EPA agreed to issue rules for regulating GHG emissions from fossil fuel electricity generating units (EGUs). Rules were first proposed on March 27, 2012, when the EPA released for public comment its Proposed Carbon Pollution Standard for New Power Plants (hereafter originalCPS). The EPA received more than 2.5 million public comments on the originalCPS and subsequently withdrew the proposal upon issuing a revision on September 20, 2013, as part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan. The revised rules (hereafter revisedCPS) are currently under review.