Biden’s EPA sets strictest power plant emission rules.

EPA Unveils Strictest-Ever Rules for Power Production

After weeks of anticipation, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released its strictest-ever rules for power produced using natural gas, coal, and oil. These rules could spur the use of carbon capture technologies and affect both new and old power infrastructure.

What You Need to Know

• The standards released on May 11 would affect new and old power infrastructure, including new natural gas turbines and the country’s existing coal fleet.
• The EPA’s proposals are intended to induce U.S. power plants to boost their use of certain technologies, including the co-firing of fossil fuels with low-greenhouse gas (GHG) hydrogen and the capture, sequestration, and storage of carbon.
• The agency projects that the standards will help the United States avoid thousands of premature deaths, tens of thousands of lost workdays, and more than 300,000 asthma attacks just in the year 2030.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan told reporters that the standards are about “clean air to breathe,” claiming that they would yield “substantial health benefits” as well as “regulatory certainty” for the energy sector. The agency projects that the standards will help the United States avoid thousands of premature deaths, tens of thousands of lost workdays, and more than 300,000 asthma attacks just in the year 2030.

U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry has said that the United States simply “won’t have coal” on its grid by 2030. The EPA’s proposals are intended to induce U.S. power plants to boost their use of certain technologies, including the co-firing of fossil fuels with low-greenhouse gas (GHG) hydrogen and the capture, sequestration, and storage of carbon.

More Details From EPA

Regan and others with the EPA repeatedly stressed that they don’t believe that their vision runs afoul of West Virginia v. EPA. That landmark Supreme Court decision, decided 6–3, concerned a carbon emissions plan for existing power plants put forth by the EPA under President Barack Obama.

The EPA stated that its proposal offers “ample lead time and substantial compliance flexibilities.” That might appear to conflict with President Joe Biden’s aim of achieving “a carbon pollution-free electricity sector by 2035,” as expressed in a 2021 executive order. EPA officials and staff told reporters on May 10 that the ambition was still within reach.

The proposals come against a backdrop of various major EPA actions bearing on fossil fuels, including new tailpipe emission standards. Several weeks ago, the agency also proposed new emissions limits for coal plants focused on mercury and other air pollutants. It also recently took aim at methane leaks from oil and gas drilling sites.

Anger and Skepticism

Fossil fuel advocates greeted the EPA’s latest with skepticism. “President Joe Biden’s plans to restrict carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, and the inevitable support from environmental organizations, illustrates what is wrong with the so-called green movement,” Tom Harris of the International Climate Science Coalition said in an April statement.

Steve Milloy, a former member of the EPA’s transition team under President Donald Trump, challenged the idea that the rulemaking is in line with West Virginia v. EPA. He also asserted that the proposed standards would effectively “ban fossil fuel plants without carbon capture.”

Other experts have a different perspective. “Just because the agency tailored its rules around emissions levels that could be met with carbon capture systems doesn’t mean utilities will be compelled to install them,” Mike O’Boyle of Energy Innovation Policy & Technology LLC said in an interview with Politico’s E&E News in late April.

Carbon capture is key for cutting emissions from at least some sources, according to EPA documentation. An agency staff member who spoke with reporters on May 10 said carbon capture is the best option “for long-lived, coal-fired power plants.”