Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
1/30/2015
The Environmental Protection Agency has identified several key areas within its proposed carbon emission regulations for existing coal-fired power plants that remain a concern for many states, Reid Harvey, Director of the Clean Air Markets Division with the EPA, said during the National Conference and Global Forum on Science, Policy and Environment this week. The proposed regulations set state-specific carbon emission reduction targets and requires states to develop action plans to meet those targets. Areas which have raised questions among the states included the use of “outside the fence” measures in the development of state targets and the “glide path” of the regulations, which require a certain amount of reductions to occur before the end target in 2030. “Under the proposal, states have a 2030 emissions rate target, but they also have an interim target that they’ll have to meet that applies between 2020 and 2029,” said Phil Assmus, senior staff associate with the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. “Some states have raised concerns that the stringency of their 2020 target is such that they won’t actually have time between now and then to take advantage of all of the flexibility that EPA’s tried to build into the rule.”
Inside and Outside the Fence Measures Questioned
A further concern that has been raised frequently is that the best system of emissions reduction (BSER) laid out in the plan includes “outside the fence” measures, or measures that would be taken somewhere other than at the actual power plant. These measures could include fuel switching and demand side energy efficiency programs that would retroactively reduce emissions at the coal-fired power plant by decreasing demand for electricity. The controversy surrounding the use of outside the fence measures stems from the idea that states would like to use outside the fence measures to meet their targets, but don’t believe that these measures should be included in the equation used to develop the targets, Assmus explained. “I want to make sure that people have in mind the distinction [with] the inside or outside. The distinction can be drawn both on the stringency side and on the compliance side and from what I hear, there’s fairly wide consensus that outside the fence is okay on the compliance side, it’s stringency where it’s a little more controversial,” Assmus said.
The inside/outside issue has become the focus of much debate concerning the legality of the regulations. Some argue that the EPA, in setting the BSER, can only call for actions that can be taken at the energy generating unit itself. However, Tomas Carbonell, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund, said the BSER in the proposed regulation is only a suggestion and not a requirement. No state is mandated to develop a demand side energy efficiency program, for example, but if they did so following the BSER the EPA set for their state, they would meet their target. “There’s a common misconception that the building block approach that EPA’s adopted in setting the stringency of the state goals also dictates that path that states have to take and that’s certainly not the case,” he said. “In fact the building blocks are just a way of determining a state-wide goal and assuring that that state-wide goal can be met in one way that is technology based, is cost affective and that involves reasonable deployment of things like renewable energy and energy efficiency. In fact there are many measures that states can implement to reduce emissions that are not accounted for in those building blocks and can be built into state plans.”
Harvey also said the building blocks in the proposed regulation are not a requirement. “We’re not saying you have to do the things that we said you could do in setting the best system of emissions reduction. As long as you meet the goal, a numeric number, we’re agnostic about how you do that,” he said.
