Author: Barry G. Rabe
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 10
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Book Description
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched a major new greenhouse gas reduction initiative in June 2014 through the release of its proposed Carbon Pollution Standards for Existing Power Plants. Better known as the Clean Power Plan (CPP), EPA outlined a proposal that would seek an overall reduction in emissions from existing electricity-generating facilities that would fall 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, with interim targets beginning in 2020. This built on existing federal regulatory strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles and newly-proposed electricity generating facilities.One unique dimension of the Clean Power Plan is its provision of significant latitude to individual states in crafting a plan to reach required emission reductions. The Plan provided a specific emission reduction target for each state, which ranged considerably across states and regions but collectively would achieve a national 30 percent reduction. It also offered a series of “building blocks” that could lead to reduced emissions and provided a wide range of policy options that individual states might consider in formulating a response. The Plan has received intensive media coverage since its launch and an extended period of public engagement. This included a series of well-publicized public hearings around the nation and a formal public comment process that was so heavily engaged that its deadline was ultimately extended to December 1, 2014. EPA has begun to review these comments and is also meeting extensively with various stakeholders in preparing to issue a modified version by mid-2015. Many states have begun to explore possible responses, both individually and with regional partners, ranging from active consideration of policy options to litigation to attempt to reverse this federal initiative. This significant climate policy initiative was included in the National Surveys on Energy and Environment for the first time in our Fall 2014 survey, placed into a larger instrument that explored other policy questions and ongoing analysis of public attitudes on climate change. We attempted to secure public views on the general merits of the Clean Power Plan as well as test support for a number of the more prominent policy options that states have been encouraged to consider in weighing compliance possibilities. Other important findings from the Fall 2014 survey will be presented in subsequent reports.
Author: Claire Ferguson
Publisher: Nova Snova
ISBN: 9781536148251
Category : Air quality
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The principal statute addressing air quality concerns, the Clean Air Act was first enacted in 1955, with major revisions in 1970, 1977, and 1990 and is addressed in the first part of this book. Congressional actions on air quality issues have been dominated since 2011 by efforts particularly in the Houseto change the Environmental Protection Agencys (EPAs) authority to promulgate or implement new emission control requirements. EPAs regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from electric power plants and from oil and gas industry sources have been of particular interest, as have the agencys efforts to revise ambient air quality standards for ozone. The 115th Congress and the Trump Administration are reviewing some of these regulations, with the possibility of their modification or repeal. On October 23, 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published its final Clean Power Plan rule (Rule) to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), specifically carbon dioxide (CO2), from existing fossil fuel-fired power plants. The aim of the Rule, according to EPA, is to help protect human health and the environment from the impacts of climate change. The Clean Power Plan would require states to submit plans to achieve state-specific CO2 goals reflecting emission performance rates or emission levels for predominantly coal- and gas-fired power plants, with a series of interim goals culminating in final goals by 2030.
Author: Melinda E. Taylor
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
On June 2, 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a plan to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from existing fossil fuel power plants based on its authority under section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. § 7411(d)). The proposal, known as the Clean Power Plan or 111(d) rule, will require each state to develop a plan for reducing the rate of CO2 emissions from its electric power system. As currently proposed, the Clean Power Plan requires states to meet interim emissions reduction targets beginning in 2020, with final targets to be achieved by 2030. The Clean Power Plan envisages that electric power companies will reduce their emissions by, among other things, switching to lower carbon fuel sources and increasing investment in energy efficiency. Currently, coal supplies approximately 40 percent of the electricity delivered to the grid in the U.S. Reducing the carbon intensity of the electric power system will mean increased reliance on natural gas and alternative sources of power, such as nuclear, wind, and solar. To some extent, this transition is already underway, even in the absence of federal standards. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that, between 2004 and 2014, coal-fired electricity generation declined by nearly 20 percent. Over the same period, natural gas-fired generation increased by almost 58 percent and non-hydroelectric renewable generation by over 200 percent. The Clean Power Plan promises to accelerate this transition away from coal towards natural gas and renewables. Given this, the Clean Power Plan has been highly controversial. EPA received approximately two million public comments from states, industry leaders, environmental groups, and public citizens with a wide range of opinions on the best options to proceed with the Clean Power Plan. To help inform the on-going policy debate, from April to June 2015, the Kay Bailey Hutchison Center for Energy, Law, and Business at The University of Texas at Austin conducted a survey on key aspects of the Clean Power Plan. 66 valid survey responses were received. The survey respondents included power company executives, industry consultants, state environmental officials, state energy officials, utility regulator staff, and regional transmission organization staff from various locations. Responses were not collected from every state. Survey respondents were not asked whether they support or oppose the Clean Power Plan. Rather, the survey focused on issues relating to implementation of the Plan. The survey results are summarized in this report. Key findings of the survey include: (1) The overwhelming majority of survey respondents favored the development of state compliance plans rather than federally-developed plans. (2) There was broad support, among survey respondents, for mass-based trading programs. Support was found in both Democratic- and Republican-controlled states but was higher in the former than the latter. (3) Survey respondents were divided on the use of renewable portfolio standards and energy efficiency measures. These policies were popular among energy and environmental officials, particularly in Democratic-run states. However, few power company executives supported use of the policies. (4) Most survey respondents favored market-based compliance options. 68 percent of respondents indicated that they preferred mass-based trading over other market-based options. 11 percent of respondents listed rate-based trading as their preferred option. (5) Almost two-thirds of survey respondents favored adoption of mass-based emissions targets, arguing that they are easier to implement than the rate-based targets proposed by EPA. Others, however, expressed concern about the difficulties of converting any rate-based target into a mass-based form. There was also some concern about a mass-based target's perceived limits on future electricity growth. (6) The bulk of survey respondents supported interstate cooperation on the Clean Power Plan, with 90 percent arguing that states should develop multi-state plans or single-state plans that preserve the option to trade across state lines.
Author: Rachel Marlowe
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
It is an interesting debate when two societal principles so integral to our long-term survival seem to come to a head. The Clean Power Plan, a new proposed rule by the EPA to reduce carbon emissions, appears to have sparked just such a battle. A clash seemingly between goals of environmental protection and protection of existing individual jobs is sure to garner public attention. However, this debate is less about jobs versus the environment and more about a shift in jobs from more traditional energy sectors to newer, less established sectors. This article explores the goals of the Clean Power Plan and how proponents and opponents alike frame the issue, especially in Pennsylvania, which is at the center of the changing energy landscape in the United States. President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act into law on December 31, 1970. Many Federal environmental acts were signed into law in the 1970's as a result of growing citizen concern for the environment. The Clean Air Act authorized EPA to enact federal regulations and employ enforcement mechanisms that would control air emissions from both stationary and mobile sources. The Clean Air Act's main purpose has always been protecting the environment, although the cost of compliance and the impact of regulations on American industry were considered by Congress in conjunction with enactment of the Clean Air Act and its amendments. Additionally, any proposed rules, changes, or enforcement mechanisms are required to do the same. This article also addresses those impacts in the context of the recently proposed Clean Power Plan. The science community's knowledge about humans' impact on our climate has changed vastly since 1970 when we knew very little about the future of the world climate and were only beginning to realize that carbon dioxide emissions cause our planet to warm. In addition, coverage of this concept has also increased. These climate change stories have gone from being hidden in the back of technical journals to at the forefront of our mainstream media. In response to increasing concern about the current state of our environment and growing scientific consensus about global climate change, the EPA, on June 18, 2014, proposed a new rule establishing emissions guidelines for states to follow as they develop plans to address greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel electric generating units. This rule would mandate a thirty percent cut in carbon dioxide emissions from 2005 levels by the year 2030. This plan would develop state-specific goals for carbon dioxide emissions from power-related sources and continue progress already underway in reducing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants.
Author: The Law The Law Library
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781723440564
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 602
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Book Description
Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources - Electric Utility Generating Units (US Environmental Protection Agency Regulation) (EPA) (2018 Edition) The Law Library presents the complete text of the Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources - Electric Utility Generating Units (US Environmental Protection Agency Regulation) (EPA) (2018 Edition). Updated as of May 29, 2018 In this action, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is establishing final emission guidelines for states to follow in developing plans to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from existing fossil fuel-fired electric generating units (EGUs). Specifically, the EPA is establishing: Carbon dioxide (CO 2) emission performance rates representing the best system of emission reduction (BSER) for two subcategories of existing fossil fuel-fired EGUs-fossil fuel-fired electric utility steam generating units and stationary combustion turbines; state-specific CO 2 goals reflecting the CO 2 emission performance rates; and guidelines for the development, submittal and implementation of state plans that establish emission standards or other measures to implement the CO 2 emission performance rates, which may be accomplished by meeting the state goals. This final rule will continue progress already underway in the U.S. to reduce CO 2 emissions from the utility power sector. This book contains: - The complete text of the Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources - Electric Utility Generating Units (US Environmental Protection Agency Regulation) (EPA) (2018 Edition) - A table of contents with the page number of each section
Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Environment and Public Works
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Coal-fired power plants
Languages : en
Pages : 348
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Book Description
Author: Vivian E. Thomson
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262036347
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
How power is wielded in environmental policy making at the state level, and how to redress the ingrained favoritism toward coal and electric utilities. The United States has pledged to the world community a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 26–28 percent below 2005 levels in 2025. Because much of this reduction must come from electric utilities, especially coal-fired power plants, coal states will make or break the U.S. commitment to emissions reduction. In Climate of Capitulation, Vivian Thomson offers an insider's account of how power is wielded in environmental policy making at the state level. Thomson, a former member of Virginia's State Air Pollution Control Board, identifies a “climate of capitulation” in state government—a deeply rooted favoritism toward coal and electric utilities in states' air pollution policies. Thomson narrates three cases involving coal and air pollution from her time on the Air Board. She illuminates the overt and covert power struggles surrounding air pollution limits for a coal-fired power plant just across the Potomac from Washington, for a controversial new coal-fired electrical generation plant in coal country, and for coal dust pollution from truck traffic in a country hollow. Thomson links Virginia's climate of capitulation with campaign donations that make legislators politically indebted to coal and electric utility interests, a traditionalistic political culture tending to inertia, and a part-time legislature that depended on outside groups for information and bill drafting. Extending her analysis to fifteen other coal-dependent states, Thomson offers policy reforms aimed at mitigating the ingrained biases toward coal and electric utilities in states' air pollution policy making.
Author: Congressional Service
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781986425582
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 26
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Book Description
In 2015, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promulgated the Clean Power Plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil-fueled electric power plants, it concluded that the benefits of reducing emissions would outweigh the costs by a substantial margin under the scenarios analyzed. EPA estimated benefits ranging from $31 billion to $54 billion in 2030 and costs ranging from $5.1 billion to $8.4 billion in 2030, when the rule would be fully implemented. In proposing to repeal the rule in October 2017, EPA revised the estimates of both its benefits and costs, finding in most cases that the benefits of the proposed repeal would outweigh the costs of the proposed repeal. However, EPA found that under other assumptions, the costs of the proposed repeal would outweigh the benefits of the proposed repeal. This report examines the changes in EPA's methodology that led to the revised conclusions about how benefits compare to costs. Three changes to the benefits estimates of the proposed repeal drive the agency's new conclusions. First, it considered only domestic benefits of the Clean Power Plan in its main analysis, excluding benefits that occur outside the United States. Second, it used different discount rates, including one higher rate, than the 2015 analysis to state the present value of future climate benefits expected from the Clean Power Plan. Third, the analysis reduced some estimates of the human health "co-benefits"-that is, the benefits resulting from pollutant reductions not directly targeted by the Clean Power Plan. Specifically, several scenarios assumed no health benefits below specified thresholds for some air pollutants. EPA also changed the accounting treatment of demand-side energy efficiency savings. EPA's 2015 analysis treated savings from energy efficiency measures as a negative cost, whereas the 2017 analysis treated them as a benefit. Using the terminology of the proposed repeal, EPA moved energy savings from the cost savings estimate to the forgone benefits estimate. There was no change in the difference between benefits and costs because the benefits and costs increased by the same amount. This change took on more significance in a separate analysis that EPA conducted to analyze the cost savings of the proposed repeal. EPA based one set of benefit-cost estimates of the proposed repeal on its 2015 power sector modeling, which does not reflect changes that have since occurred in the power sector. EPA based the other set of benefit-cost estimates on more recent power sector projections from the Annual Energy Outlook 2017. The power sector changes subsequent to 2015 are potentially important and include changes in expected electricity demand, expected growth in electricity generation by renewable energy technologies, retirements of older generating units, changes in the prices and availability of different fuels and renewables, and state and federal regulations. While modeling differences render the two sets of estimates incomparable, both sets of estimates show a range of costs exceeding benefits (i.e., net costs), and benefits exceeding costs (i.e., net benefits) of the proposed repeal. EPA stated that it plans to update the power sector modeling and make it available for public comment before it finalizes the proposed repeal. This forthcoming analysis may show the extent to which updated power sector projections may change EPA's benefit-cost estimates.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309086094
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 187
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Book Description
EPA estimates that thousands of premature deaths and cases of illnesses may be avoided by reducing air pollution. At the request of Congress, this report reviews the scientific basis of EPA's methods used in estimating the public health benefits from its air pollution regulations.
Author: Manfred Hafner
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030390667
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 398
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Book Description
The world is currently undergoing an historic energy transition, driven by increasingly stringent decarbonisation policies and rapid advances in low-carbon technologies. The large-scale shift to low-carbon energy is disrupting the global energy system, impacting whole economies, and changing the political dynamics within and between countries. This open access book, written by leading energy scholars, examines the economic and geopolitical implications of the global energy transition, from both regional and thematic perspectives. The first part of the book addresses the geopolitical implications in the world’s main energy-producing and energy-consuming regions, while the second presents in-depth case studies on selected issues, ranging from the geopolitics of renewable energy, to the mineral foundations of the global energy transformation, to governance issues in connection with the changing global energy order. Given its scope, the book will appeal to researchers in energy, climate change and international relations, as well as to professionals working in the energy industry.
