Utah’s legislature on March 11 passed a bill establishing a five-year pilot program under which the state Public Service Commission can authorize electricity provider Rocky Mountain Power to spend $1 million annually on clean coal technology. The Sustainable Transportation and Energy Plan (STEP) allows the utility “to implement a combined line item charge on … customers’ bills to recover the cost to the large-scale electric utility.”
The bill passed the state Senate 20-8 and the House 46-26 and is now awaiting the anticipated signature of Gov. Gary Herbert (R).
The bill defines clean coal technology as “a technology that may be researched, developed, or used for reducing emissions or the rate of emissions from a thermal electric generation plant that uses coal as a fuel source.”
Specifically, the legislation calls for the Public Service Commission to “authorize, before July 1, 2017, and subject to funding, approve a program that authorizes a large-scale electric utility to investigate, analyze, and research clean coal technology.”
