Climate 411

The path forward for net-zero emissions climate policy

By Nat Keohane / Published: July 16, 2018

By Nat Keohane and Susanne Brooks

This post originally appeared in The Hill

Climate change is a defining threat of our generation. But the way forward has never been clearer. Electric power generation is being transformed by the rapid deployment of wind, solar and utility-scale storage. Technological innovation is reshaping transportation and industry. New means of capturing and storing carbon are on the horizon.

Even so, the challenge is monumental. To have a reasonable chance of avoiding the worst effects of climate change, the world must achieve “net-zero emissions” — taking as much carbon out of the atmosphere as we put into it — in this century. Here in the United States, we are currently emitting carbon pollution at seven times the rate that we are soaking it up. We must take advantage of every cost-effective opportunity to cut climate pollution now, while investing in the innovations that will put us on course for net-zero emissions as soon as possible.

Economic and technological trends alone won’t do the trick. Waiting to act only deepens the challenge and increases the cost and pace of reductions needed. To unleash the full potential of breakthrough clean energy technologies, we need well-designed policies that accelerate the low-carbon transition rather than hinder it.Encouragingly, action is already underway: cities, states, and businesses are forging ahead to enact policies and undertake initiatives to reduce pollution, building on momentum from the plummeting costs of clean energy technologies. Those efforts are crucial. But the world won’t solve climate change without American leadership at all levels. To cut climate pollution at the scale and pace that science tells us is necessary requires national action.

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Also posted in Basic Science of Global Warming, Climate Change Legislation, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Policy / Comments are closed

Proof that the Clean Power Plan’s strategy for cutting carbon pollution is the industry standard

By Charlie Jiang / Published: April 26, 2018

The public comment period is just about to close on EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s reckless attempt to repeal the Clean Power Plan, and thousands of Americans — including mayors, CEOs, energy experts, and citizens concerned about the threats Pruitt’s actions pose to our children’s health and future — have already spoken out in vigorous opposition to the misguided repeal effort.

There is a lot at stake. The Clean Power Plan would prevent 4,500 early deaths and 90,000 childhood asthma attacks each year. It would cut carbon pollution by 32 percent from 2005 levels, and would substantially reduce other harmful air pollutants from power plants.

By slashing air pollution and helping mitigate the threats of climate change, the Clean Power Plan would secure significant benefits to public health while growing the clean energy economy.

Yet, as Pruitt continues his misguided effort to turn back the clock on lifesaving climate protections, momentum is growing in states and the power sector to slash carbon pollution and usher in a clean energy future.

States and companies are moving away from carbon-intensive sources of electricity generation, and are increasing their use of cleaner technologies — deploying the same cost-effective strategies to cut carbon pollution that EPA relied upon when establishing emission reduction targets under the Clean Power Plan. Pruitt’s attempt to repeal the Clean Power Plan is putting this flexible approach to ambitious and low-cost emission reductions under attack.

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Also posted in Clean Air Act, Clean Power Plan, Economics, EPA litgation, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, News, Policy, Pruitt / Comments are closed

Still cheaper than coal – a report on the economics of solar power in Colorado

By Rama Zakaria / Published: March 26, 2018

Workers install solar panels on a building in Superior, Colorado. Photo: SolarDave.com

(EDF’s Graham McCahan co-authored this post)

A newly-updated report is shedding light on what President Trump’s solar trade tariffs may mean for one state – and underscoring a tremendous opportunity to move forward toward clean energy, with all the benefits it can bring.

Xcel Energy filed its 30-day bid report update with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission on March 1. The update follows Xcel’s filing at the end of last year, in response to an “all-source solicitation,” as part of its Electric Resource Plan and its proposed Colorado Energy Plan.

Xcel’s plan would shut down two units at the Comanche coal plant in Pueblo, Colorado, and replace the capacity with a mix of lower carbon resources. Earlier results were unprecedented, with more than 80 percent of the bids coming from renewable energy and storage at incredibly cheap prices.

Xcel then provided bidders an opportunity to refresh their bids following President Trump’s final decision in the Suniva/SolarWorld trade case in January, which imposed tariffs on imported solar equipment.

The refreshed bids in Xcel’s updated report show minimal change relative to last year’s results and confirm that new wind and solar power in Colorado continues to be cheaper than existing coal plants – despite the trade tariffs.

According to the report, Xcel “received bid affirmation and refresh responses from all but one of the 400 plus bids.”

Of these responses:

“58% of the bids affirmed no change in pricing, 16% increased pricing, and 26% decreased pricing.”

The solar photovoltaic (PV) median bid price increased by only $1.5 per megawatt hour, and the median bid for solar PV with battery storage increased by $2.3 per megawatt hour – still the cheapest solar plus storage bids in the U.S. to date.

Based on analysis by Carbon Tracker, this means that the median bid price for solar is lower than the operating cost of all existing coal units in Colorado, while the median solar plus storage bid is lower than roughly 70 percent of operating coal capacity.

Federal renewable energy tax credits are likely buffering some of the solar trade tariff effects. While recent analyses show significant cost declines for renewable energy, with wind and solar becoming increasingly competitive with conventional generation even on an unsubsidized basis, the renewable tax credits are still a significant factor contributing to favorable wind and solar economics in the short-term and in the face of the Trump solar tariffs. That said, it’s important to recognize that coal generation has enjoyed state and federal incentives for a century, and continues to do so.

The tax credits are being phased down in the next few years, with the production tax credit for wind phasing out in 2019 and the investment tax credit for solar in 2021. So it will be critical to act now to take advantage of those credits to deploy clean energy at lowest cost and secure the associated economic and public health benefits.

Colorado is an example of this tremendous opportunity to move forward now to lock in incredibly low-cost resources, with no fuel costs and therefore no medium- to long-term volatility or risk to consumers. The Xcel bids show that there is a lower-cost clean energy alternative to keeping the polluting Comanche units online in Pueblo, and it no longer makes sense to continue to operate and maintain these units at the expense of Colorado customers and Colorado air quality.

There is even the potential for low-cost utility-scale on-site solar to be used by Evraz Rocky Mountain Steel – a steel mill and the single largest manufacturer in Pueblo and largest producer of premium rail in North America – to help cut costs and keep manufacturing jobs in Pueblo.

Evraz is Xcel’s largest retail customer in Colorado, and the 175-200 megawatt Evraz solar project that the company is considering would provide a cost-effective option to meet Evraz’s growing needs, help guarantee Evraz low and stable electricity rates in the future, and therefore help keep Evraz in Colorado.

We are already witnessing some of the impacts of Trump’s solar tariffs on jobs in some areas of the U.S., and the potential for these tariffs to stall American competitiveness and innovation – for instance, American solar company SunPower recently announced that it will lay off hundreds of workers, largely from its research and development and marketing positions.

But the Xcel refresh bids in Colorado – a state blessed with high solar and wind potential – provides an important first look at what the solar tariffs mean for the competitiveness of clean energy in a state where clean energy conditions are favorable.

In Colorado, it is clear that the advantages of clean energy for consumers and the local economy remain compelling. Despite the tariffs – and in the presence of renewable tax credits, rapid technological advances, and plummeting costs of solar and storage technologies – solar still outcompetes fossil fuels. It also helps lower costs to consumers, and protects local manufacturing jobs.

The state should act now to lock in those benefits for the people of Colorado.

Also posted in Economics, Policy / Comments are closed

The Winter Olympics on hostile terrain: How climate change is harming winter sports

By Casey Ivanovich / Published: March 6, 2018

The 2018 Winter Olympics have drawn to a close, and four years will pass before the world’s next opportunity to celebrate the Winter Games.

During that time, emerging athletes and innovations in training methods will inevitably change the face of the sports. But another more malevolent force of change is brewing – one that has begun to shift the landscape of the Games into hostile terrain.

As climate change continues to progress, adverse weather conditions threaten our beloved winter sports as we know them.

Familiar locations no longer suitable for outdoor sports

Researchers from the University of Waterloo recently determined that shifting weather conditions due to human-induced climate change will render 13 of the previous 19 hosts of the Winter Olympics too warm for outdoor sports by the end of the century.

Even recent host cities have faced new challenges in our changing climate. The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, for example, experienced peak temperatures of 61 degrees Fahrenheit, inducing poor snow conditions that led to various delays and injuries throughout the weeks of competition.

Winter sport athletes have also begun to find their trusted off-season training locations unrecognizable. Glaciers that once provided ideal conditions for outdoor summer training have been slashed by trails of melt water and are rapidly disintegrating. U.S. athletes who previously looked to the Rocky Mountains to support their off-season practice must now travel across the globe to regions such as Switzerland, further exacerbating global warming as increased international travel pumps greenhouse gases into our atmosphere.

Accessibility diminishes for potential athletes

In the years of practice before an athlete may secure sponsorships or funding from national Olympic Committees, training and associated travel costs must be self-supported. The necessity of cross-continental travel thus not only makes tangible the effects of our changing climate, but confines potential talent pools from which Olympic athletes may emerge to socioeconomic groups able to financially support international travel.

The U.S. National Hockey League (NHL) has voiced similar concerns about athletes’ future training access. While the development of indoor rinks has allowed hockey to be played globally, the sport has traditionally relied on backyard rinks and ponds to provide players with their first introduction to skating. These more accessible venues are becoming progressively more limited as global temperatures continue to rise.

Informal backyard matches are not the only events threatened by climate change, as historic outdoor hockey events including the NHL Winter Classic, Heritage Classic, and Stadium Series may also be lost to warming conditions.

Widespread economic implications

We can shift these winter sports indoors or to higher latitudes in order to extend their lifetimes, but what happens to the regions left behind?

In the U.S. alone, snow-based recreation generates $67 billion per year and supports over 900,000 jobs. In a single year with poor snow conditions, more than $1 billion in revenue and 17,350 jobs can be lost.

Such threats are not looming in the distant future – changes are already taking shape.

As precipitation begins to fall as rain rather than snow throughout winter months, U.S. ski resorts are forced to spend more than 50 percent of their annual energy budgets on artificial snowmaking.

Canada’s average 4.5 degree Fahrenheit temperature rise between 1951 and 2005 has been matched with a 20 percent decrease in the country’s outdoor hockey season.

Future impacts are only expected to worsen, with the U.S. ski season projected to be cut in half by 2050.

Athletics are recognizing the impacts of climate change

Many competitors and athletic associations have already acknowledged the undeniable role of climate change in threatening the livelihood of these winter sports:

  • The National Ski Areas Association adopted their Climate Challenge program, aiming to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and costs of energy use for participating ski areas.
  • Preceding the 2014 Winter Games, 75 Olympic medalists in skiing and snowboarding wrote a letter to then-President Barack Obama calling for a firmer stance on climate change mitigation and clean energy development.
  • The NHL used their 2014 sustainability reportto voice their “vested interest” in climate change, historically participating in the Paris Agreement conference discussions a year later.
  • A group of athletes and companies has come together to create a group called Protect Our Winters to educate and advocate for policies that mitigate the effects of climate change.

The threat of human-induced climate change recognized by these leaders applies to more than just winter events. Summer sports, such as golf and baseball, are also feeling the strain of our warming world.

In the spirit of the Olympic Games, we must unite as global citizens to join in our most important race – the race to defend the future of our planet.

Also posted in Basic Science of Global Warming, Extreme Weather, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Science / Comments are closed

Key takeaways from the court decision blocking suspension of BLM’s Waste Prevention Rule

By Rosalie Winn / Published: February 23, 2018

(EDF Legal Fellow Samantha Caravello co-authored this post)

A U.S. District Court judge has halted Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s latest effort to suspend the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Waste Prevention Rule.

The judge issued a preliminary injunction last night in response to legal challenges brought by the states of California and New Mexico, and by EDF and a coalition of conservation and tribal citizen groups.

The court decision ensures that the Waste Prevention Protections are in full force and effect, delivering important benefits to tribes, ranchers and families across the West. It also demonstrates that facts matter, and that public input matters — and, as the court recognized, Zinke ignored both when he suspended the Waste Prevention Rule.

Here are some key takeaways from the court’s decision.

Zinke’s suspension would have resulted in immediate and irreparable harms

The Waste Prevention Rule requires that oil and gas companies take common sense actions to prevent the waste of valuable natural gas on federal and tribal lands. These actions also reduce harmful air pollution including methane, and smog-forming and toxic pollutants.

Judge William Orrick, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, found that Zinke’s attempt to suspend the Waste Prevention Rule would have real, immediate, and irreversible effects on public health and the environment.

In reaching this conclusion, the judge highlighted the severe health threat that Zinke’s suspension would pose for people living near oil and gas operations.

He cited:

“[T]he waste of publicly owned natural gas, increased air pollution and associated health impacts, and exacerbated climate impacts.” (Order, page 2)

The judge referred to declarations from EDF experts and members that documented these health and climate harms, including:

  • “Environmental Defense Fund member Francis Don Schreiber, for example, resides on a ranch in Governador, New Mexico, where there are 122 oil and gas wells either on or immediately adjacent to his land, all managed by BLM and subject to the Suspension Rule…. He notices an ‘extremely strong’ ‘near-constant smell from leaking wells,’ which ‘make[s] breathing uncomfortable’ and causes concern that he and his wife ‘are breathing harmful hydrocarbons…’ As Schreiber suffers from a heart condition and has already had open heart surgery, he is ‘at a higher risk from breathing ozone,’ and is ‘constantly concerned about the impact of the air quality on [his] heart condition.’” (Order, page 26)
  • “Dr. Ilissa B. Ocko, climate scientist, states that the 175,000 additional tons of methane that will result during the one-year suspension is ‘equivalent to the 20-year climate impact of over 3,000,000 passenger vehicles driving for one year or over 16 billion pounds of coal burned.’” (Order, page 25)
  • “Dr. Renee McVay, whose research focuses on atmospheric chemistry, estimates that approximately 6,182 wells subject to the Waste Prevention Rule are located in counties already suffering from unhealthy air with elevated ozone levels… The Suspension Rule will result in additional emissions of 2,089 tons of VOCs in these already at-risk communities, where many of the conservation and tribal group plaintiffs’ members reside, leading to and exacerbating impaired lung functioning, serious cardiovascular and pulmonary problems, and cancer and neurological damage.” (Order, page 25)

The court concluded:

“Plaintiffs list several environmental injuries with effects statewide, to the general public, and on the personal level, any of which might be sufficient to establish likely irreparable harm.” (Order, page 27)

Facts and analysis matter

In addition to these irreparable harms, the court found that EDF and our allies were likely to succeed on the merits:

“Plaintiffs have provided several reasons that the Suspension Rule is arbitrary and capricious, both for substantive reasons, as a result of the lack of a reasoned analysis, and procedural ones, due to the lack of meaningful notice and comment.” (Order, page 29)

Under the law, when a federal agency seeks to change a prior policy – as Zinke did when he sought to suspend the common sense requirements in the Waste Prevention Rule – that agency must provide “good reasons and detailed justification.” (Order, page 12)

The court found that Zinke fell short of these important requirements because he repeatedly “fail[ed] to point to any factual support underlying [his alleged] concern[s]” over the Waste Prevention Rule. (Order, page 14)

The court carefully evaluated each alleged justification for the suspension put forth by Zinke, and found them all lacking.

For example, the court noted that with respect to Zinke’s “concerns” regarding production wells:

“[C]ounsel for the government essentially conceded that it was in possession of no new facts or data underlying this ‘newfound’ concern.’” (Order, page 14)

Ultimately, the court found:

“[I]t appears that BLM is simply casually ignoring all of its previous findings and arbitrarily changing course.” (Order, page 17, internal quotation omitted)

The court’s careful analysis underscores that these facts matter, and that Zinke cannot ignore the substantial record evidence supporting the common sense standards in the Waste Prevention Rule.

Public input matters

The court also found that Zinke attempted to ignore key input from the public on the suspension of the Waste Prevention Rule by deeming comments on the importance and effectiveness of the Waste Prevention Rule “outside of the scope” of his action. (Order, page 23)

The court found Zinke’s “refus[al] to consider” this important input on “integral” issues was inconsistent with bedrock requirements of administrative law.

The fight to protect these safeguards is not over

The court has now determined that EDF and our allies are “likely to succeed on [our] claim that BLM failed to consider the scope of commentary that it should have in promulgating the Suspension Rule and relied on opinions untethered to evidence.” (Order, page 24)

Next, the case will proceed to the merits stage, in which the court will issue a final decision on the legality of Zinke’s suspension of the Waste Prevention Rule. A schedule has not yet been set for this next phase of the litigation.

However, just as the court was blocking his suspension, Zinke was separately trying to rescind nearly all of the key provisions of the Waste Prevention Rule that he was also trying to suspend.

Zinke acknowledges that this rescission will cost taxpayers millions in lost royalties, and will result in additional emissions of climate-warming methane as well as smog-forming volatile organic compounds and hazardous air pollutants – but he nonetheless is proposing to eliminate the protections in the Waste Prevention Rule.

BLM is accepting public comment on the rescission proposal until April 23. It is important that Zinke continue to hear from the public about the harmful impacts that will result from his actions to remove these common sense protection. Comments on the proposal can be filed here.

Also posted in Clean Air Act, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Health, News, Policy / Read 1 Response

Underhanded maneuvers to repeal the Clean Power Plan put Americans’ lives and health at risk

By Rama Zakaria / Published: October 9, 2017

(EDF’s Ben Levitan co-authored this post)

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt says he will sign a proposal tomorrow to repeal the Clean Power Plan – America’s only nationwide limits on carbon pollution from fossil fuel power plants.

If the proposal matches what we’ve already seen in a leaked draft, it would be one of the most deeply harmful and reckless actions an EPA Administrator has ever taken. It would cost thousands of American lives, harm public health in myriad other ways, and lead to years of costly delays in combating the urgent threat of climate change.

Administrator Pruitt would have to go to great lengths to obscure and ignore these harmful consequences. When EPA issued the Clean Power Plan in 2015, it estimated that the plan would create up to $54 billion in annual benefits, including:

  • The prevention of up to 3,600 premature deaths every year
  • The prevention of 90,000 childhood asthma attacks every year
  • The prevention of 300,000 missed school and work days every year.

By comparison, EPA concluded that the annual costs would be much lower. And in the two years since the Clean Power Plan was issued, new analyses – including this one from New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity – have concluded that compliance with the Clean Power Plan has become dramatically cheaper as a result of the plummeting costs of clean energy.

Yet the draft proposal for repealing the Clean Power Plan seems to rely on a significantly higher costs estimate, and much lower benefits. How is that possible?

A careful look at the numbers shows that the Administrator Pruitt’s EPA cooked the books for this proposal. They used discredited methodologies to artificially inflate costs, and to mask the consequences for our climate and obscure the thousands of lives that could be lost as a result of their repeal of the Clean Power Plan.

Here are four tactics that Administrator Pruitt has employed in the leaked proposal to inflate the costs and hide the benefits of the Clean Power Plan:

1. Disregarding lives saved by the Clean Power Plan

EPA’s original analysis of the Clean Power Plan found that it would avoid thousands of premature deaths each year by reducing particulate matter pollution – yielding up to $34 billion in annual health benefits in 2030.

According to the American Lung Association, particulate matter pollution causes permanent damage to lung development in children, aggravates asthma and other respiratory problems, increases hospitalizations, and increases deaths from heart and lung diseases including lung cancer.

The Clean Power Plan would reduce exposure to this pollution across the country – avoiding these health harms and premature deaths.

Administrator Pruitt’s draft proposal assumes away those benefits by asserting – contrary to established medical research – that there is zero health impact from reducing particulate matter pollution below certain “threshold” levels. The proposal also suggests that EPA can count only the climate benefits associated with carbon pollution, with no consideration to any health benefits at all.

This claim that there is a “threshold” level of particulate pollution below which it does not harm human health is directly contradicted by the American Heart Association and was completely discredited many years ago by an expert panel convened by EPA under the George W. Bush Administration. It also runs contrary to EPA’s long-standing practice.

As EPA itself recently explained in a court brief:

The best scientific evidence, confirmed by independent, Congressionally-mandated expert panels, is that there is no threshold level of fine particulate pollution below which health reductions are not achieved by reducing exposure.

Ignoring the deaths and harm to Americans’ health that would result from repealing the Clean Power Plan is unconscionable. The plain truth is that undoing the Clean Power Plan would deprive Americans of billions of dollars in health benefits and put then at increased risk for premature death.

2. Artificially inflating the costs of the Clean Power Plan

EPA originally anticipated that parties would comply with the Clean Power Plan in part through investments in demand-side energy efficiency, “a highly cost-effective means” for reducing carbon pollution from the power sector.

Demand-side energy efficiency measures help consumers save electricity, resulting in lower electric bills for hard-working Americans, less pollution, and a more reliable electric grid. Investments in energy efficiency are largely offset by the electricity savings that result.

Yet the upside-down accounting in the draft proposal adds those energy efficiency investments to the costs of the Clean Power Plan without deducting the electricity savings those investments yield. This makes it look like the power sector is paying for both energy efficiency and the electricity that it no longer needs to produce. Therefore, this upside-down accounting includes billions of dollars of imaginary electricity costs – for electricity that will never be generated or purchased.

The draft proposal adds the cost of this imaginary electricity to its estimate of Clean Power Plan benefits — to represent the “benefit” of not having to purchase electricity that was never produced in the first place. When comparing costs and benefits, this imaginary electricity is a net wash ­– but it enables EPA to inflate its estimate of the plan’s costs by up to $19.3 billion in 2030.

The draft proposal also uses a higher discount rate of 7 percent for energy efficiency investments – providing no meaningful justification for a choice that further inflates costs by $6.2 billion.

The cumulative effects of adding the cost of imaginary electricity and using a higher discount rate increases costs by up to $25.5 billion in 2030.

3. Shortchanging the benefits of reducing carbon pollution

Administrator Pruitt’s proposal aggressively undercuts the social cost of carbon. That’s the estimate of damages that climate pollution causes for our families and communities – from more intense hurricanes and heat waves, more wildfires, and the many other threats of climate change.

By using an unrealistically low figure, the proposal severely undervalues the benefits of the Clean Power Plan’s carbon reductions.

The original Clean Power Plan utilized an estimate of the social cost of carbon developed over many years by experts from a dozen federal agencies who used the best available science and repeatedly considered public input.

The draft proposal for repealing the Clean Power Plan has new, misleading values that use unsound methods rejected by independent experts to yield a lower estimate of the Plan’s benefits.

The draft proposal simply ignores important categories of carbon reduction benefits

The new proposal claims to count only the domestic U.S. impacts of carbon pollution, even though this pollution causes worldwide harm. A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences affirmed the importance of counting global benefits, explaining that the benefits of reducing carbon pollution would be dangerously undervalued if every country used a domestic-only social cost of carbon.

The draft proposal’s “domestic-only” cost estimate also ignores significant harms to the U.S. that arise from climate change impacts in other countries – including “global migration, economic destabilization, and political destabilization,” and “[l]ower economic growth in other regions [that] could reduce demand for U.S. exports, and lower productivity [that] could increase the prices of U.S. imports.”

For these reasons, the National Academy of Sciences concluded earlier this year that:

Climate damages to the United States cannot be accurately characterized without accounting for consequences outside U.S. borders.

Administrator Pruitt’s approach flies in the face of that expert advice.

The draft proposal short-changes our children by discounting pollution reduction benefits for future generations

The new proposal also uses a sharply lower value for the benefits that today’s carbon reductions provide to future generations.

The original Clean Power Plan “discounted” the future benefits of carbon reductions at a rate of three percent per year, based upon the findings of the inter-agency working group.

But the new proposal uses discount rates as high as seven percent, without any justification – a value that is much higher than recommended by the National Academy of Sciences or the economics literature.

The cumulative effects of ignoring global impacts and increasing the discount rate are dramatic. In the original Clean Power Plan, EPA estimated climate benefits of $20 billion in 2030 (using a three percent discount rate). The draft proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan estimates climate benefits of just $0.5 billion in 2030.

Click to enlarge

 

4. Ignoring how low-cost clean energy means the Clean Power Plan will be even more affordable

In the two years since EPA finalized the Clean Power Plan, the plan’s goals have become even more achievable and low-cost than originally projected – thanks to electricity sector developments including the sharply declining costs of renewable energy.

But the new draft proposal has made no attempt to update its economic analysis, and does not appear to acknowledge that recent studies of the Clean Power Plan have found compliance costs are now much lower than EPA originally estimated.

Instead, Administrator Pruitt is proposing to repeal this life-saving, economically beneficial public health protection before even bothering to properly consider the latest data.

The recent report from the Institute for Policy Integrity highlights the falling costs of complying with the Clean Power Plan and points to several power sector developments that explain this trend.

The report presents several recent economic analyses conducted by independent, non-governmental entities that estimate substantially lower compliance costs than EPA projected in 2015. For instance, a June 2016 analysis by M.J. Bradley & Associates, using the same electric sector model as EPA but updating several inputs, finds that compliance would cost up to 84 percent less than EPA originally estimated.

EPA recognized and evaluated many of these precise studies as part of its Clean Power Plan deliberations. Yet for the sake of repealing the Clean Power Plan, Administrator Pruitt has decided to ignore these studies.

America deserves better

The Clean Power Plan is the most significant step the U.S. has ever taken to address the crisis of climate change. Once fully implemented, it will provide enormous public health benefits – making Americans safer, healthier, and more productive.

If Administrator Pruitt is intent on rolling back a life-saving protection for human health and the environment, the American people at least deserve an honest evaluation based on the best available data.

Unfortunately, it looks like he’s using underhanded maneuvers and deceptive accounting gimmicks to justify rescinding the Clean Power Plan instead – and the consequences for the health and safety of Americans will be all too real for decades to come.

Also posted in Clean Power Plan, Economics, Health, News / Comments are closed