The Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is accused of using overly optimistic assumptions in its internal analysis for its proposed power plant enforcement.
As part of the administration’s broader climate agenda, in May, the EPA unveiled regulations for fossil fuel-fired power plant emissions.
In its announcement, the agency stated that the plan would “avoid” 617 million metric tons of carbon pollution by 2042 by mandating carbon capture technology or the closure of power facilities.
It added, however, that the regulations would have “negligible cost.”
The group also states that the EPA created a questionable baseline scenario, failed to account for the projected growth of electric vehicles, and exaggerated the development of carbon capture technology.
The EPA packed an overwhelming majority of the plan’s projected emission reductions into a “baseline scenario” in the RIA released alongside the regulations.
Energy Prices for Consumers
The new EPA-proposed law primarily targets power produced in the United States using coal and natural gas, which now accounts for 60 percent of the nation’s electrical output.The analysis focused on the agency’s assertions that the proposal will have minimal effect on the energy market or emissions since, in its view, most reductions will take place even in the absence of the powerplant regulation.
It also claims that the EPA has chosen to ignore the effects of other major rulings that are currently in the works.
According to the RIA, without the EPA’s proposed regulations, power sector emissions are projected to fall by 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2040. The EPA assumes that emissions will decline by 81 percent as a result of the regulations, a difference from the baseline scenario of only 1 percent.
Global Energy Institute’s report also takes on how the RIA claims the EPA’s plan would affect energy prices for consumers. The analysis says the rules wouldn’t cause prices to go up.
But industry groups and experts cited in the Global Energy Institute report have strongly disagreed that pollution cuts such as these could be made without incurring large costs.
Also, the baseline situation claimed by the RIA is very different from what the neutral Energy Information Administration, which is part of the Department of Energy, predicted.
Reducing Pollution From Fossil Fuels
The EPA stated in its overview of the new rule that it hopes to use the regulation to help reduce pollution from power plants that burn fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.These rules are aimed at cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, which the agency asserted are a contributing factor of climate change.
The proposed regulations would require new and existing power plants to use technologies that can lower their greenhouse gas emissions. This includes using more efficient methods of generating electricity and finding ways to capture and store carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas.
The EPA also proposed to update the guidelines for existing power plants to encourage the use of cleaner fuels such as natural gas and to make it easier for them to adopt carbon capture and storage technologies.
If these new rules are implemented, power plants will have to find cost-effective ways to reduce their emissions to adhere to EPA standards of human health and environmental protection.
The EPA stated that it wants to make sure that these rules don’t interfere with the reliable supply of affordable electricity that the country needs.
An EPA spokesperson told The Epoch Times: “EPA will closely evaluate the Chamber’s report and will consider and respond to the report along with other comments received during the public comment period for the proposed rules, which remains open until August 8, 2023 (as extended by 15 days from the original comment deadline of July 23).”
