US EPA to announce repeal of Clean Power Plan

• 6 years ago (2017-10-09)
• David Flin

Coal 273 Emissions 57 North America 996

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The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is likely to repeal the country’s Clean Power Plan instigated by the Obama Administration, saying that the call to switch to more natural gas and renewable generation exceeded the EPA’s authority.

According to a leaked draft rule, the EPA will contend that Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act requires emission regulations be based on reductions that can be applied at a single source. The leaked 43-page proposal said: “The CPP encompassed measures that would generally require power generators to change their energy portfolios through generation-shifting (rather than better equipping or operating their existing plants) through the creation and subsidisation of significant amounts of generation from power sources entirely outside the regulated source categories, such as solar and wind energy.”

Reports suggest that the repeal could be formally announced by 10th October. An EPA spokeswoman declined to comment on the authenticity of the leaked draft, but said: “Any replacement rule that the Trump Administration proposes will be done carefully and properly within the confines of the law.”

EPA said it will seek to repeal the rule because two of the three “building blocks” in the CPP – switching from coal to natural gas and from fossil fuel plants to renewables – exceed the Agency’s authority. EPA said that the third building block, improving the heat rate of coal-fired plants, “could not stand on its own.” It said: “Any potential future rule that regulates greenhouse gas emissions from existing electricity utility generating units under CAA Section 111(d) must begin with a fundamental re-evaluation of appropriate and authorised control measures and recalculation of performance standards.”

EPA said that it will interpret the CAA’s “best system of emission reduction” as referring to emission-reduction measures “that can be applied to or at an individual source. That is, such measures must be based on a physical or operational change to a building, structure, facility, or installation at that source, rather than measures that the source’s owner or operator can implement on behalf of the source at another location.