EPA Clean Power Plan Introduced

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EPA: Clean Power Plan

The Environmental Protection Agency has released a plan recently that will change how Colorado’s electric co-ops distribute electricity to its end users. The new regulation lays the way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the United States by 30 percent by the year 2030. Fht Clean Power Plan sets a cap for coal fired and gas fired plants in the United States, which is different that the previous rule that bases emissions on state specific variables. EPA outlines three tools that can be used to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions.

Those three tools are: increased use  of natural gas over coal, increased use of renewable energy for power and the use of purchasing and selling of emissions credits among utilities.

According to an article in the September 2015 edition of Colorado Country Life many of the earlier power plants were build to use coal and still have a useful life and produce affordable electricity. Furthermore, the article cites the fact that compliance costs will also increase.

The article goes on to says that new infrastructure will have to be built, therefore increasing power costs, especially in the near term, although the EPA says that the Clean Power Plan will result in the lowering of power bills in the future. An interesting point in the article is that power plants that still are useable will end up abandoned, which means that consumer will still have to pay for power plants that are no longer in use.

Does the Clean Air Act give the EPA the power to institute this plan? There are a lot of arguments out there that say no and it is likely that they will be argued in court.

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