Dozens of energy policy and advocacy groups are pushing Congress to repeal one of President Joe Biden’s signature climate policies.
A coalition of more than 40 organizations signed on to a letter being circulated to lawmakers Thursday, taking aim at the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recently-finalized emissions reduction regulations for coal-fired and new natural gas power plants. The letter urges lawmakers to back expected resolutions from Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and Ohio Rep. Troy Balderson that would overturn the rules using the Congressional Review Act, a tool that allows lawmakers to overturn certain federal regulatory actions.
The EPA’s rules, finalized in April, require many existing coal plants and new natural gas facilities to control 90% of their emissions by 2032 if they want to stay open in the longer term, a mandate that will effectively require plant operators to spend billions of dollars on expensive carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) equipment in order to continue operating some facilities. Critics of the policy have derided its reliance on CCS, technology that they say is not sufficiently advanced to play a major role in America’s power grid so soon.
REPORTER: “Can you say how much of the grid is in danger?”
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“The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recently finalized power plant rule will kill America’s existing supply of baseload generation from coal. At the same time, the rule will deter investment in new baseload generation from natural gas,” the letter states. “That means the rule will drive up consumer energy costs, impair grid reliability, and chill economic growth. The rule is also an unlawful power grab that defies the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA.”
“The EPA could not have picked a worse time to attack affordable, reliable, coal- and gas-fired generation,” the letter continues. “Electricity demand is projected to grow substantially due to the proliferation of data centers, expansion of Artificial Intelligence, onshoring of chip production, and the EPA’s and California’s policies to forcibly electrify U.S. motor vehicle fleets.”
Some of the organizations represented among the letter’s signatories include the Competitive Enterprise Institute, The American Consumer Institute, the American Energy Institute and the Western Energy Alliance.
The agency has maintained that its regulations for power plants will not negatively affect the reliability of America’s power grid. However, several grid analysts and experts suspect that the opposite is more likely to end up being the case if the rules are fully enacted.
A coalition of red states and the Edison Electric Institute, a major utility trade group, are suing the government over the rules.
The EPA did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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