Officials from six states want the Environmental Protection Agency to extend the comment period for its proposed carbon emissions regulation for power plants.
The officials from Arkansas, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Missouri said they need more data behind the EPA’s methodology to better understand how it arrived at individual state goals for cutting power sector emissions by 2030. They told EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy that the Oct. 16 close to the comment period wouldn’t leave them enough time to figure out all of that.
“We respectfully request that EPA issue non-binding, illustrative examples of how states could convert their rate-based goals to mass, including the underlying calculations and assumptions,” wrote the officials, which included both Democrats and Republicans who represented state environmental and utility regulatory agencies.
The proposed EPA rule aims to slash electricity emissions 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
The states that filed the comment as members of the Midcontinent States Environmental and Energy Regulators, aren’t the first to recommend more information about the rulemaking — 13 Republican attorneys general did the same late last month.
Pressure to extend the comment period for the proposed rule is also growing on Capitol Hill. A majority of the Senate — 53 members — signed a letter this week asking for more time.
