Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
6/13/2014
Kentucky has emerged as one of the strongest opponents of the Environmental Protection Agency’s new proposed rules to reduce emissions from existing power plants, though some experts have suggested the coal state may not have as many problems adapting to the new rule as originally thought. The proposal would set CO2 emissions reduction guidelines for each state and requires them to submit a plan to the EPA to reach their targets. Since the proposal was released, though, the Kentucky state legislature has already moved to block implementation, and the state’s two U.S. Senators, Republicans Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, have come out strongly against the EPA. “By imposing these draconian new rules on the nation’s coal industry, President Obama and every other liberal lawmaker in Washington who quietly supports them is also picking regional favorites, helping their political supporters in states like California and New York while inflicting acute pain on states like Kentucky,” McConnell said in a release issued last week following the announcement of the proposed regulations.
Conrad Schnieder, Advocacy Director at the Clean Air Task Force, noted, though, that the EPA’s proposal sets individual targets for states, and those that have already made strides to reduce their reductions or have greater potential to switch to natural gas or renewable energies have generally been given greater reductions targets in the proposed regulations. “If you go to a state that maybe has no experience with [carbon reductions] it stands to reason that they may have less confidence, but that doesn’t mean they either were treated unfairly or it’s not possible for them to do it,” Schneider said in an interview with GHG Monitor late last week. “It’s just that they have not put together the infrastructure, even the regulatory infrastructure to, sort of make it happen. I would say Kentucky, for example, has a much shorter distance to travel than states that have more potential for gas switch or more potential for renewables or more potential for energy efficiency, so their lift is not going to be as heavy because EPA has recognized that they have less potential for reductions because those resources are really not available to them in large enough quantities.”
Kentucky Bill Calls for ‘Inside the Fence’ Measures Only
The bill signed into law by the Kentucky legislature this spring would block the state’s Energy and Environment Cabinet from proposing or submitting any plan to the EPA establishing performance standards for existing fossil-fuel fired plants unless that plan is “prepared in consultation with the Kentucky Public Service Commission to ensure that the plan minimizes the impacts on current and future industrial, commercial, and residential consumers; and does not threaten the affordability of Kentucky’s rates or the reliability of electricity service.” Any plan must also be “inside the fence,” limiting mitigation efforts to those which can be undertaken at the power plant. Further, the bill allows for the consideration of the adoption of “less stringent performance standards or longer compliance schedules for those units than are established in applicable federal rules or guidelines.” These considerations will be based on a number of criteria, including energy price increases, unreasonable costs to reducing emissions from certain plants and expected economic impacts of closing plants such as job loss.
Schneider said the bill, which was prepared in advance of the release of the EPA’s proposal, is not going to be beneficial going forward. “This probably has more to do with Kentucky electoral politics and less to do with real stuff,” he said. “As I understand it … the statute said that they can only do it within the fence. So they didn’t say you can’t do a plan at all, they said you can only look inside the fence.”
Kentucky may be interested in converting to a mass-based plan Schneider said, which the proposed regulations seem to allow for. “I think they were already planning to comply on the basis that some of their coal plants were going to be shut down. EPA took that into account when it set the target, and if that’s calibrated correctly than Kentucky should be fine, even with that legislation it might be fine, but what it does is it takes off the table other options of compliance,” he said. “If when Kentucky looks at this more closely, they say ‘Oh, we could have done this more cheaply,’ then that legislation might preclude that. That really is limiting your options and why would you want to do that?”
