The Biden administration finally rolled out its much-awaited greenhouse gas limits for power plants today, at an event one attendee called the “Clean Air Act prom.” The endlessly awaited draft rule is a big deal: It would set the strictest power plant standards in U.S. history. Its reduction requirements are tougher even than the Obama administration’s signature Clean Power Plan, which received a posthumous blow from the Supreme Court last year. This time, EPA says its new standards stay within the lines of the high court’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act. Instead of trying to cut pollution across the power sector by reducing coal’s market share in favor of renewables like wind and solar, it sets limits on carbon emissions from individual plants. They’re strict enough that many fossil fuel plants would either need to install devices to capture their carbon pollution or shut down by 2040. The catch(es): The rule comes with sizable exceptions, however. All coal plants, and large natural gas plants that run most of the time, would have to capture 90 percent of their emissions. But those requirements wouldn’t take effect until the 2030s. Neither would an alternative pathway in which gas-burning plants could comply by adding high levels of so-called green hydrogen to their fuel mix. The rule’s unusually long lead time risks missing President Joe Biden’s commitment of an 80 percent clean energy grid in 2030, and a zero-carbon one five years later. EPA estimates relatively few annual cuts in planet-warming pollution until 2030 — and then steep reductions until 2040. The rule also applies lighter requirements for coal plants that retire before 2040. And it effectively exempts the thousand-plus gas plants that run at 20 percent or less of capacity — providing power during periods of peak demand — though EPA is exploring a future rule for them. EPA Administrator Michael Regan promised today that the regulations would benefit communities of color who suffer disproportionately from air pollution. But some advocates say the carve-out for intermittent “peaker” gas plants could mean marginalized communities remain stuck with hazardous air pollution. “A much higher percentage of the population is impacted by peaker plants than by baseload [plants], and they’re going to continue to be impacted because these rules are not going to do anything for their emissions,” said Shelley Robbins, project director at the Clean Energy Group. Many environmental justice groups also worry that carbon capture and hydrogen will throw fossil fuels plants a lifeline. Legal outlook: Republican attorneys general already plan to sue over the rule, arguing that EPA’s objective is to undermine coal — and the grid reliability that comes with steady fossil fuel power. “This rule appears to utterly fly in the face of the rule of law,” West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said in a statement this morning. Last year, Morrisey led the states whose litigation successfully buried the Clean Power Plan. Today, he said, “we expect that we would once again prevail in court against this out-of-control agency.”
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