Jeremy L. Dillon
GHG Monitor
3/21/2014
The Natural Resources Defense Council’s proposed plan on how to cut carbon emissions from U.S. power plants can potentially achieve even greater reductions for a lesser cost than previously thought, according to the NRDC’s updated analysis released this week. The NRDC had originally proposed a plan in 2012 that would reel in carbon emissions from existing power plants under Clean Air Act authority by calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to work with individual states to set up carbon emissions reduction rates based on the current fuel mix of each state. The new analysis shows that 470 to 700 million tons of carbon emissions can be eliminated per year in 2020 while yielding $28 to $63 billion in medical and environmental benefits by 2020. Previous analysis showed those numbers at 270 million tons and $25 to $60 billion, respectively. “NRDC’s new analysis demonstrates that there are cheaper, cleaner and more routes to substantially reduce this dangerous pollution,” NRDC Executive Director Peter Lehner said. “They would eliminate billions of tons of carbon pollution from our air; create tens of thousands of clean energy jobs and deliver benefits of up to $63 billion in 2020—6 times greater than the cost.”
The release of the new analysis comes at a critical time as the EPA continues to establish its guidelines going forward on carbon emissions. The Obama Administration last year directed the EPA to a form a new national standard for states to adopt that would help curtail carbon emissions in existing plants. The EPA is expected to release its new policy by early summer of this year, a date that is currently on track according to Daniel Lashof, the NRDC’s director of Climate and Clean Air program. “Normally when EPA has deadlines to issue rules, we can expect delays, and then the NRDC has to sue EPA to get rules out on time,” Lashof said. “We absolutely don’t believe that will be the case this time. Everything we are hearing indicates that they are on schedule, on track to get this out, which means they are making critical policy decisions right now about how ambitious they are going to be.”
EPA Would Look at Each State’s Energy Mix
NRDC officials reaffirmed the plan does not require states or power generators to use any specific technology to reduce emissions, but allows them the flexibility to choose their own suite of technologies to comply with the rulemaking. Under the plan, EPA would use data about each state’s fuel mix, as well as national average emissions rate benchmarks, to hammer out individual standards for each particular state. From there, states would then be able to develop their own implementation plan regarding how they will meet those benchmarks through the energy technologies of their choice. States could also opt to participate in alternative schemes such as state and regional cap-and-trade programs as long as they ultimately achieve the same level of carbon reductions, NRDC said.
As with other Clean Air Act rulemakings, if a state does not provide EPA with an acceptable proposal, the Agency could issue its own federal plan for the state, according to the group. “Another audience that is going to benefit from this report is at the state level because states are beginning to think quite seriously about how they are going to comply,” said Dallas Burtraw, a Darius Gaskins senior fellow for Resources for the Future. “They are going to rely on reports such as this to see what options are available to them while developing an implementation plan. The time is just right for that audience.”
Plan Would Cost Industry $4 Billion in 2020
NRDC said the proposal, which carries a price tag of about $4 billion in 2020, would now lead to $28 billion to $63 billion in environmental and public health benefits while prompting the investment of more than $90 billion in efficiency efforts and renewable sources by the end of the decade. Whether the plan has any legs, though, remains uncertain. The proposal offers the Obama Administration the distinct advantage of being able to effectively bypass Congress regarding the regulation of greenhouse gases, but the move would also likely prompt additional outrage from Republicans as well as a slew of lawsuits, as other EPA Clean Air Act rulemakings have in recent years.
