Electric utilities and state environmental agencies pleaded with the nation’s top electric grid regulator Thursday to push back on the deadlines the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed for complying with its power-plant emissions rule.
The first Federal Energy Regulatory Commission technical conference on the EPA proposal showcased unified worries about the agency’s aggressive proposed interim emission reduction targets. Those targets begin in 2020, but organizations that are affected contend there’s not enough flexibility or time to comply.
“Don’t be chopped liver. You need to have an active role in this process,” Susan Kelly, president of the American Public Power Association whose members include electricity generators, urged the commission. “[The EPA has] come and swept you into the maelstrom, whether you want to be there or not.”
Top EPA officials have acknowledged it is considering scuttling the near-term target. Both EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and Janet McCabe, the agency’s air chief, said at a utility regulator conference this week that revisions were on the table.
McCabe reiterated that call Thursday, saying comments about the interim goals “may indeed defeat the flexibility the proposal was intended to provide. We’re paying a lot of attention to this.”
Under the current proposal, most states are required to make a bulk of their emissions rate reductions by the 2020 interim deadline. McCabe has said that was intended to smooth a “glide path” toward reaching final goals that would reduce electricity emissions nationwide 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
The proposed rule has proven contentious: Democrats, environmental groups and generally blue states have said it would reduce harmful pollutants and limit costs associated with extreme weather and rising sea levels; Republicans, industry groups and conservative states say it will raise energy costs and harm the economy.
McCabe defended the agency’s overall proposal, which is the centerpiece of President Obama’s climate change agenda.
“[Climate change] impacts, both dramatic and incremental, will get worse if we do not take steps to reduce carbon pollution,” she said.
But logistical problems are getting in the way of complying with the proposal, say Gerard Anderson, president of Michigan utility DTE Energy.
Anderson, who spoke on behalf of the Edison Electric Institute trade group, said states must enact legislation that enables them to craft a plan and then actually create it, which he anticipated taking until at least mid-2017. After that, regulators must approve state and utility investment decisions, which would take another year.
“[Compliance] simply isn’t achievable in that timeframe,” Anderson said.
Many states aren’t even working on their plans currently because the proposal isn’t due for finalization until mid-summer, said Alexandra Dunn, executive director of the Environmental Council of States, whose members are state environmental agency officials.
“I asked them what are you doing right now, are you working on your plan?,” Dunn said of her conversations with members. “And the answer may disappoint those in this room, but it’s ‘No.’ ”
The tight timeframe is also hindering abilities for states to coordinate on regional plans, Anderson said. That’s a problem for the EPA, given that it has stressed some of the greatest cost savings would come from working with other states.
“The more the compliance is compressed, in some ways, perversely, the less energy will be given to regional coordination,” Anderson said.
Dunn, however, noted that some states have naturally ordered into groups. The 11 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states that comprise the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative cap-and-trade system — which McCabe hinted earlier this week would comply with the final rule — is one. Western states such as Colorado, Arizona and California are also working together. Energy-producing states have found common ground on some issues.
Still, cross-border issues are troubling some power companies and states, Kelly said. Questions remain over which state gets credit for reducing emissions through energy efficiency if the source of power lies in a different state than the one that is implementing the efficiency program. Tracking renewable power use is also tricky, as utilities in one state might buy solar or wind electricity from another.
“We’ve got a lot of problems that are giving us a big headache,” Kelly said.
That’s why electric utilities, power generators and regional reliability agencies need to become more involved in the planning process, Dunn said.
“We’ve got to now, like maybe starting now, start expanding the dialogue … to ensure it’s a bigger conversation than what’s currently happening,” Dunn said.
