WRAP UP

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
07/06/12

IN CONGRESS

A group of nearly a dozen senators signed a letter to President Obama late last week asking him to issue an executive order extending the compliance period for the Environmental Protection Agency’s mercury and air toxics rule by two years. The group of Republicans and moderate Democrats, mainly from the southeast, asked Obama to use his authority under the Clean Air Act to extend the compliance timeline for EPA’s recently finalized Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for two additional years, ultimately providing utilities with six years to install pollution control technology to comply with the rule. The rulemaking in its current form provides utilities with three years of compliance, along with a possible one-year extension provided by states and a potential fifth year for some units. The group said the additional two years would provide utilities with more time to order and install equipment, apply for permits and minimize disruptions to the power grid. “In short, exercising your Presidential authority under the Clean Air Act to provide an additional two years for implementation of this rule will help citizens of our States achieve the health benefits of clean air at the lowest possible cost and with the least possibility of disruption of electric service,” the letter says. The letter comes a week after Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) requested that Obama do the same thing. The two said they plan on introducing legislation this month that aims to codify the same request.

IN EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency said this week that it will not revise the permitting thresholds for its greenhouse gas regulations and plans to “maintain focus” on the country’s largest emitters under the ‘Tailoring Rule.’ EPA said that it aims to focus on the country’s largest stationary sources that emit at least 100,000 tons of greenhouse gases per year of CO2 equivalent with its performance standards for new fossil fuel-fired power plants while shielding smaller emitters like schools from permitting requirements. EPA said that focus would help ease permitting burdens on state and local authorities. “After consulting with the states and evaluating the phase-in process, EPA believes that current conditions do not suggest that EPA should lower the permitting thresholds. Therefore, EPA will not include additional, smaller sources in the permitting program at this time,” an EPA release says. The agency said it will also finalize a provision allowing companies to set plant-wide limits for greenhouse gas emissions. The announcement comes on the heels of a major victory for EPA in a federal appeals court last week, which helped uphold the Tailoring Rule. Despite the ruling, House Republicans late last week said they were concerned that EPA would eventually lower the permitting thresholds and subject smaller point sources to the regulations, a move they said could hurt job creation.

The Sierra Club announced late last week that the former Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator made famous for his “crucify” remarks about the oil and gas industry will now be working for its ‘Beyond Coal’ campaign. The environmental group said that former EPA Region Six Administrator Al Armendariz will begin working later this month as a senior campaign representative for its Beyond Coal campaign, an effort to end the use of coal in the U.S. “Based in Austin, Dr. Armendariz will draw on his scientific expertise working on air, water, and climate science to help move Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas off coal-fired electricity and toward an economy powered by job-generating clean energy sources such as wind and the sun,” the group said. Armendariz resigned from EPA in April after Congressional Republicans circulated a 2010 video of him speaking with local businesses about the agency’s enforcement policies for hydraulic fracturing, which he compared to the Romans “crucify[ing]” conquered peoples. The Administration later said Armendariz’s remarks were “inappropriate and inaccurate.”

IN THE STATES

Environmental regulators in New York adopted CO2 emissions limits for new and modified fossil fuel-fired units late last week that are slightly stricter than federal standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this spring. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation opted to enact an emissions performance standard of 925 lbs/MWh for baseload fossil fuel-fired plants larger than 25 MW, slightly stricter than the 1,000 lbs/MWh standard proposed by EPA in March. The rule, which is set to take effect July 12, will require the operators of those units to either install carbon capture and storage technology or switch to natural gas or other cleaner-burning energy technologies in the future. “The adoption of this regulation ensures that new and expanding power plants in the state will incorporate cleaner and more efficient technologies,” Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens said in a statement. “By preventing new high-carbon sources of energy, this performance standard will serve to further minimize the power sector’s contribution to climate change, which poses a substantial threat to public health and the environment in New York.” No coal plants are in active development in the state of New York, according to Reuters.