Clean Power Could Mean Lower Electric Bills

Many are already predicting changes, some that could be significant. The changes outlined by the source are an attempt to quash concerns that states would need to shift their power sectors too quickly, imposing potentially heavy costs and creating concerns about maintaining adequate electricity supply. Another point that I’ll be looking for is the timing … so when do the states have to submit the plans and when do utilities actually have to start taking action. “We expect the final Clean Power Plan to have the same strong legal foundation”.

One more-guidance on multistate trading options. Under a “common elements” or “trading-ready” approach, states could use similarly defined tradable emissions credits and common or linked tracking systems to ease the trade of emissions credits across state boundaries.

The Chattanooga City Council released the following statement joining Thursday’s National Day of Action working to support the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan and the first ever federal limits on unsafe carbon pollution expected to be released next week.

Even if states aren’t ultimately in charge of whether their energy companies comply, they may want to consider the consequences of stepping back while EPA implements an FIP, Selmi said. It explains the high bar challengers have to clear to get a stay-or suspension-of the carbon pollution standards; issues that could be fought over on the merits of the Clean Power Plan; and a rough analysis of previous legal challenges to Clean Air Act air measures and their outcomes, largely in EPA’s favor.

“Our analysis affirmed that a state-by-state compliance approach would be more expensive to administer than a regional approach”, said Lanny Nickell, vice president of engineering for SPP, in a statement. “A state-by-state solution also would be more disruptive than a regional approach to the significant reliability and economic value that SPP provides to its members as a regional transmission organization”.

Report co-author Elizabeth Stanton says the savings vary state to state, depending on the type of investments. The EPA set individual goals for each state to reduce the carbon intensity of their power plants based on a mix of four “building blocks”: improving efficiency of coal-fired power plants; replacing more coal with natural gas; deploying more wind, solar and hydro power and preserving nuclear power; and expanding consumer energy efficiency programs.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Obama Administration had previously proposed legislation requiring pollution-emitters like power plants to begin dramatically cutting their emissions starting in the year 2020.

Republican lawmakers have urged states not to comply with the rule when its finalized and to wait for the courts to decide whether EPA’s regulation is lawful. The EPA had treated those states as if the plants were already generating power, raising unrealistic expectations for the rate of cuts, those states said. The Supreme Court upheld the rule, which aims to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides that can lead to soot and smog in 28 states, in May 2014.

Daniel Selmi, a visiting scholar at Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, argued in a primer on the issue that EPA is also legally required to set the same state goals under an FIP.