Comments made last week by Canadian Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy regarding emissions reductions should be taken with a grain of salt, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity and the Coal Association of Canada said Friday.
“Our neighbors to the north would be well advised to listen carefully to what EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy isn’t saying as she makes her pitch for reducing emissions in Canada. For instance, she’s not likely to talk about how her own plan, here in the United States, has been halted by the land’s highest court as its legality is questionable, at best,” Laura Sheehan, ACCCE senior vice president of communications, said in a press release, referring to the current Supreme Court hold on the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.
McCarthy did mention the rule, which requires states to develop action plans to meet federally set emissions reduction goals. The administrator appeared confident that the rule would survive legal challenge. “In three years we’ll be right into implementing the Clean Power Plan,” she said Thursday during a speech at the University of Ottawa.
Sheehan also noted the EPA’s standards for new-build coal-fired power plants, which essentially mandate the use of carbon capture and storage. Opponents argue that because the rule demands the use of the costly technology, no new coal-fired power plants will be built in the U.S. and, in turn, development of CCS will also stall. “It’s also interesting to hear McCarthy talk about the importance of research & development and new technologies to burn coal and other fossil fuels cleaner, given her policies at home placed a de facto ban on furthering critical development of carbon capture and sequestration,” Sheehan said.
