The Trump administration on Tuesday plans to unveil a proposal to replace the Clean Power Plan, former President Barack Obama’s signature initiative to combat climate change, with a narrower rule more friendly to industry.
[Update: EPA claims replacement for Obama coal rule would save $400 million annually, reduce pollution]
The Environmental Protection Agency will introduce its proposal in the morning, renamed the “Affordable Clean Energy Rule,” and President Trump is expected to tout it at a rally in coal-friendly West Virginia later that night.
The 2015 Clean Power Plan, which was never implemented because of a Supreme Court stay, required states to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, by shifting away from coal plants to natural gas and renewable energy. It was the pledge that underpinned the U.S.’ commitment to the Paris climate change agreement before Trump rejected the deal.
Trump’s replacement plan will give more power to states to regulate their coal plants.
The proposal would cut carbon dioxide emissions from 2005 levels by between 0.7 percent and 1.5 percent by 2030, compared with a business-as-usual approach, the Washington Post reported this past weekend. It does not set a specific target for emission reductions.
By comparison, the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan aimed to reduce carbon emissions by about 19 percent during that same time.
The rewritten rule will achieve more modest carbon reduction impacts because it regulates power plants individually, instead of pushing for broad changes to the U.S. electricity mix, which is already naturally shifting away from coal to cheaper and cleaner alternatives.
The EPA would mandate heat rate improvements in power plants, enabling them to run more efficiently by burning less coal to produce the same amount of electricity.
And it would ease regulations that force power plants to undergo new pollution reviews when they upgrade facilities.
Environmentalists and states are likely to sue over the proposal, which still faces a 60-day public comment period before being finalized.
Gina McCarthy, the EPA administrator in Obama’s second term, told reporters Monday that the Trump proposal would not significantly cut carbon emissions because it would help keep alive coal plants that would otherwise retire.
“That is essentially a huge gimme to coal-power plants by giving them a free pass,” she said.
