WASHINGTON (MNI) - The court fights sure to come to try to disable President Barack Obama's action to limit power plant carbon emissions, announced by the Environmental Protection Agency Monday, will have bigger stakes than expected since the plan would mandate 30% cuts instead of the expected 20%.
The proposed guidelines would cut carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants from 2005 levels and shrink electricity bills by "roughly 8%," the agency said Monday.
The controversial plan to bypass Congress to has many opponents who say forcing many coal- and natural gas-fired plants to shut down or move to alternative energy sources will raise electricity bills, cut jobs and lower economic output.
The details released by the EPA Monday also did allow for more flexible deadlines than expected, allowing states a two-step process for submitting final plans "if more time is needed." The states must come up with interim plans that advance the anti-pollution goals with short-term solutions while devising ways to cut carbon emissions on a permanent basis.
The agency will accept comments for four months and hold four public hearings before making the rule final in a year. The EPA cites the four-decade old Clean Air Act as its authority.
If implemented as described, industry groups and some state attorneys general are expected to mount a coordinated legal challenge to the administration's plan while a political battle rages to convince voters in November that it will do more economic damage than is necessary.
The proposed rule is the first statewide and industry-wide carbon emission standard. Previously individual power plants were the targets of customized anti-pollution standards, triggering the development of smokestack scrubbers and other rifle-shot remedies.
Now the EPA would require states to submit preliminary, backup and permanent plans to force existing power plants to achieve reductions "of approximately 30% from CO2 emission levels in 2005," the agency specified.
"This goal is achievable because innovations in the production, distribution and use of electricity are already making the power sector more efficient, while maintaining an affordable, reliable and diverse energy mix," the agency said.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and many other industry groups have said the cost of implementation will be prohibitive for the economy because the technology does not yet exist to achieve such steep cuts by 2030.
Although the proposed rule would accelerate conservation efforts through the use of more efficient electric motors and the substitution of wind, solar and ocean-wave generation capability, the agency said "coal and natural gas would remain the two leading sources of electricity generation" beyond 2030. The agency said it anticipates that states will find ways both to reduce electricity demand while increasing the efficiency of fossil-fuel generating plants.
The utility companies would not bear the entire burden of compliance, the agency said Monday, but would share that responsibility with state governments although states could decide to put all the pollution limits on the backs of the utility firms.
More than a dozen states already have formulated efficiency and other anti-pollution standards and have demonstrated that in combating acid rain under the Clean Air Act that "compliance with environmental programs can be monetized," the EPA said.
That refers to the "cap and trade" systems that use market incentives to allow utility firms to buy emission credits from other firms that can cut carbon emissions at lower cost.
"Each state will have the flexibility to select the measure or combination of measures it prefers in order to achieve its CO2 emission reduction goal," even finding ways not already outlined by the EPA, the agency said.
Already Republican candidates in the November congressional elections are accusing Democratic opponents of imposing a carbon tax in the guise of a cap and trade program that will cost jobs and cripple the economy and they are blaming Democrats in coal producing states for not being able to stop the President from trying to impose it. Some Democrats representing those coal producing states are also questioning the EPA's actions.
Some other Democrats are also questioning the wisdom of announcing such a controversial plan of action when control of the Senate rests of such a few states - some of them coal producing - making some candidates more vulnerable to charges of a so-called war on coal.
The EPA acknowledged the plan, nearly 650 pages long, will cost from $7.3 billion to $8.8 billion a year in 2030 but said every dollar of cost will produce $7 in health benefits, avoiding up to 6,600 premature deaths a year and up to 150,000 asthma attacks in children.
Given the average age of coal-fired power plants, "even without the agency's proposal, states and utilities will continue to make plans to modernize the aging of current assets and infrastructure," the EPA said.
In its pre-emptive blast at the EPA announcement last week, the U.S. Chamber said the carbon limits would cost 224,000 jobs a year through 2030.
--MNI Washington Bureau; tel: +1 202-371-2121; email: dgulino@mni-news.com