R.I.P, Clean Power Plan

Should we mourn the Clean Power Plan? The Clean Power Plan would have made a difference in the Southeast. It would have driven significant emission reductions.

Maggie Shober, June 18, 2019 (Southern Alliance for Clean Energy)

“…[Both the EPA’s Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) regulation and the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP)] regulate CO2 emissions from existing coal and gas power plants, but the similarities stop there…[There] were always questions swirling about whether or not the CPP itself would ever become regulation…[On removing it from future models after the 2016 election, little changed because economics, not the CPP, is] driving coal plants to retire and utilities to invest in wind and solar…Load still is not] recovering to pre-recession growth rates as many utilities expected…The sum of the CPP state targets was 32% below 2005 levels by 2030…[A]t least some parts of the country appear to be on track…[T]he Southeast is not…

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[T]he CPP would have made a big difference in the Southeast, and residents of these states will suffer greater health and economic hardships as a result of its repeal…The EPA is tasked with protecting health and welfare, and instead is protecting corporate profits…The proposed ACE would change what’s known as New Source Review (NSR)…[It] ensures that older plants have to be brought up to modern standards instead of operating indefinitely with high pollution levels…[The ACE changes to NSR would lead to older, higher polluting plants] being run more often… and newer, less polluting plants being run less often. That means more smog, heavy metals, and particulate matter that lodges in our lungs and gives our kids asthma…[The ACE] could allow owners to extend the life of these pollution-spewing coal plants…” click here for more

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