Climate 411

EPA refuses to act on smog pollution. Here’s what’s at stake.

By Rachel Fullmer / Published: October 23, 2017

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is refusing to move forward with the implementation of health-based standards that protect Americans from dangerous ground-level ozone pollution — more commonly known as smog.

That’s why Environmental Defense Fund, along with a broad coalition of public health and environmental groups, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt informing him that we will take legal action if he does not carry out his mandatory duty to begin implementing our nation’s 2015 health-based smog standard.

Smog is a caustic pollutant that irritates the lungs, exacerbates lung conditions like asthma, and is linked to a wide-array of serious heart and lung diseases.

It is particularly harmful for children, seniors, people with lung impairments like asthma, and anyone active outdoors.

Under the Clean Air Act, October 1, 2017 was the deadline for identifying the communities that meet our nation’s health-based smog standard, and for identifying those that are violating the standard. Administrator Pruitt missed this mandatory deadline to begin implementing the smog safeguards.

The Clean Air Act’s statutory deadlines are not merely suggestions – they are of critical importance to achieving better air quality. When EPA shirks mandatory deadlines, the Clean Air Act’s mechanisms to improve air quality fail to engage and American families suffer the harmful effects of breathing polluted air for longer.

Administrator Pruitt unlawfully attempted to extend this same deadline, by one year, earlier this summer. However, he was forced to withdraw this extension and reinstate the October 1, 2017 deadline in response to legal challenges filed by EDF and our public health partners, and by a coalition of 16 state Attorneys General.

Now Pruitt has failed to meet the deadline – adding to his concerning pattern of delay, and undermining these important public health safeguards.

Here’s more on the consequences of ignoring our national health-based smog standards:

By delaying implementation of the standards, EPA is allowing vulnerable communities to suffer the consequences of polluted air while Administrator Pruitt stalls.

For instance, delaying the standards will mean that residents of the Uintah Basin in Northeastern Utah will potentially be faced with more and longer exposure to pollution levels that at times can rival smoggy Los Angeles.

This is truly unacceptable when there are clear solutions for reducing smog and protecting public health, such as reducing the pollution emitted from the thousands of oil and gas wells that dot the basin – common sense solutions that would be helped along if the 2015 health-based smog standard was properly and timely implemented.

Administrator Pruitt’s failure to identify which communities have air quality that violates the health standard obscures Americans’ basic right to know whether the very air we breathe meets the level that EPA has determined to be healthy.

The health-based national air quality standard for deadly air pollutants like smog form the foundation of the Clean Air Act — a bedrock public health statute that has provided for extraordinary, bipartisan progress in protecting Americans’ health and the environment for more than 40 years.

These consensus-backed health standards save lives and protect American families. By EPA’s own estimate, compliance with the 2015 smog standard will save hundreds of lives, prevent 230,000 asthma attacks in children, and prevent 160,000 missed school days for children each year.

Failure to carry out his responsibilities under our nation’s clean air laws also demonstrates Administrator Pruitt’s disregard for the recommendations of EPA’s own public health experts and scientists.

The 2015 health-based standard for smog was developed through a rigorous and extensive rulemaking process over the course of several years, and the science on smog’s health impacts is well-established.

EPA finalized a revised, strengthened standard of 70 parts per billion after engaging in a transparent, public process and relying on well-established scientific information and the recommendations of an independent committee of scientific advisors.

Administrator Pruitt has a legal duty to carry out the health standard to ensure healthier, longer lives for millions of Americans afflicted by dangerous smog pollution. That’s why EDF joined so many others in telling him we’ll go to court if he doesn’t.

Those joining us on the notice of intent to sue are the American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, American Thoracic Society, Appalachian Mountain Club, Earthjustice, Environmental Law & Policy Center, National Parks Conservation Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and West Harlem Environmental Action.

The Attorneys General of New York, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Washington D.C. sent a similar letter.

We urges Administrator Pruitt to “expeditiously” carry out his responsibility under our nation’s clean air law to protect the health of our families and communities. There is no time to waste.

Posted in Clean Air Act, Health, Partners for Change, Policy, Smog / Comments are closed

Yes, Administrator Pruitt, EPA does have the obligation to protect America from climate pollution

By Tomas Carbonell / Published: October 19, 2017

(This post was co-authored by EDF’s Ben Levitan)

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is once again misleading the American people in an effort to avoid doing his job.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt was interviewed on Fox News this week, and questioned his legal authority and responsibility to protect the public from the pollution that causes climate change.

During that interview, Pruitt asked:

[W]hat authority has Congress given the EPA to engage in rulemaking to reduce [carbon dioxide]?

Pruitt made similar remarks at the Heritage Foundation earlier this week – peddling the discredited notion that the “Clean Air Act was set up to address local and regional air pollutants, not the global phenomena of [climate pollution].”

We’ve written about this extensively at EDF. We’re happy to go over it one more time to help Administrator Pruitt, since he seems to be having trouble understanding it.

  • That authority is in the Clean Air Act, which is a law that was passed by Congress.
  • We know that authority is in the Clean Air Act because the Supreme Court told us so.
  • The Supreme Court then said so again – and again after that.

So to sum up, we’ve been told by the High Court three times that the authority is indeed in the law that was passed by Congress.

Pruitt’s remarks come just over a week after he signed a proposed rule to abolish the Clean Power Plan — America’s only nationwide limit on climate pollution from fossil fuel power plants.

EPA is legally obligated to protect Americans from harmful climate pollution, but Pruitt’s destructive proposal would leave American communities exposed to greater climate risks, and cost thousands of American lives by increasing dangerous air pollution.

Pruitt’s words on Fox News, and even more so his actions, are appalling. The official who is charged with administering our nation’s clean air laws for the benefit of the American people – laws that the Supreme Court has now held on three separate occasions clearly apply to pollutants that are driving destructive climate change – should not be questioning his basic job description.

Communities and families across the country are already feeling the impacts of climate change through stronger hurricanes, increased flooding, more damaging wildfires, rising sea levels, worsened air quality, and more intense heat waves. Americans overwhelmingly want swift action to address this clear and urgent threat – not Pruitt’s distortions and delay.

Here’s more detail about Pruitt’s legal responsibilities:

Contrary to Pruitt’s claims, the Supreme Court has repeatedly and unequivocally affirmed that Congress gave EPA authority to regulate climate pollution:

  • In Massachusetts v. EPA (549 U.S. 497, 2007), the Supreme Court found “without a doubt” that climate pollution falls within the broad definition of “air pollutants” covered by the Clean Air Act. The Court ordered EPA to make a science-based determination as to whether those pollutants endanger public health and welfare. EPA finalized its determination 2009. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit categorically rejected a barrage of legal challenges to the determination, including one brought by Scott Pruitt when he was attorney general of Oklahoma.
  • In American Electric Power v. Connecticut (564 U.S. 410, 2011), the Supreme Court unanimously held that the Clean Air Act “speaks directly” to the problem of climate pollution from power plants – a point that even opponents of the Clean Power Plan conceded at oral argument in the case.
  • In Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA (134 S. Ct. 2427, 2014), the Supreme Court held that the Clean Air Act obligated EPA to ensure that new and modified industrial facilities apply the best available control technology to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide.

Scott Pruitt’s latest statement questioning EPA’s authority not only contradicts the rulings of the Supreme Court, it departs from the views of former EPA Administrators who have served in administrations of both political parties.

As Christine Todd Whitman, EPA Administrator under George W. Bush, put it:

I think, as a matter of law, that carbon is a pollutant has been settled.

Pruitt’s comments to Fox News also contradict his own previous statements to Congress. During his confirmation hearing to become EPA Administrator, Pruitt told United States Senators that the Supreme Court rulings were the “law of the land” and needed to be “enforced and respected.”

In the Fox News interview, Pruitt also took aim at the Clean Power Plan, repeating his false claim that the Supreme Court held the plan to be unlawful.

In fact, the Supreme Court never issued an opinion on the merits of the Clean Power Plan. It never even heard the case.

The Supreme Court simply put the Clean Power Plan on hold until legal challenges played out in the courts. And since then, Pruitt’s EPA has gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent any court from ruling on the legal merits of the Clean Power Plan.

Just as Pruitt glosses over Supreme Court precedent he doesn’t like, he also seems to have invented a Supreme Court ruling that he desires.

Pruitt’s continued claims that the Clean Power Plan is unlawful are also at odds with the views of leading legal experts – including the Attorneys General of eighteen states, former Republican Administrators of EPA under Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and Bush, and leading drafters of the Clean Air Act. They have all stood up in federal court to defend the fundamental legality of this vital climate and health safeguard.

Pruitt also took a moment in his interview with Fox News to question the health benefits associated with the Clean Power Plan – which include as many as 3,600 avoided deaths each year and thousands of avoided heart attacks and asthma attacks.

As many experts have documented, Pruitt’s EPA has deployed deceptive gimmicks to hide the consequences to human health of repealing the Clean Power Plan. Those gimmicks include assuming, contrary to the conclusions of the American Heart Association, the World Health Organization, the National Research Council, and EPA’s own scientific advisors, that there are zero benefits to reducing air pollution beyond certain levels.

Pruitt made those claims even though EPA acknowledged in its proposed repeal that the Clean Power Plan would achieve pollution reductions that would protect the health of our children.

This isn’t the first time Scott Pruitt has distorted the law and science in order to dismantle key climate and public health protections. Along with the Clean Power Plan, Pruitt has attacked pollution standards for oil and natural gas facilities, climate pollution standards for cars, and standards for heavy-duty trucks.

Americans should be outraged at Scott Pruitt’s repeated misleading statements on settled questions of law and science.

Posted in Clean Air Act, Clean Power Plan, EPA litgation, Health, News, Policy, Setting the Facts Straight / Comments are closed

The Clean Power Plan’s enormous climate benefits – in one graphic

By Ilissa Ocko / Published: October 10, 2017

In addition to the vital public health benefits it offers, the Clean Power Plan is the nation’s most significant action to date to address climate change’s number one culprit – heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions.

Now, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is trying to revoke the Clean Power Plan. Here’s a look at the enormous benefits we could lose.

When the Clean Power Plan is fully in place by 2030, the avoided annual carbon dioxide emissions relative to business-as-usual (350 million metric tons) are equivalent to preventing:

  • 40 billion gallons of gasoline consumed, or
  • 380 billion pounds of coal burned, or
  • 810 million barrels of oil consumed, or
  • 850 billion miles driven by an average car.

In order to get the same climate benefits that the Clean Power Plan would deliver, we would need to:

  • Replace 12 billion incandescent light bulbs with LEDs, or
  • Take 75 million cars off the road

Click to enlarge

 

Posted in Basic Science of Global Warming, Clean Power Plan, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, News, Science / 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.

Posted in Clean Power Plan, Economics, Energy, Health, News / Comments are closed

Five takeaways from Scott Pruitt’s reported proposal to revoke the Clean Power Plan

By Martha Roberts / Published: October 6, 2017

Today, a draft proposal emerged of the latest step in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt’s attack on clean air and climate security – a proposal to revoke the Clean Power Plan, America’s only nationwide limit on carbon pollution from power plants.

The proposal offers no commitment to do anything to address dangerous carbon pollution from existing power plants – our nation’s largest industrial source of this harmful pollution.

Here are five key takeaways from the proposal that emerged today.

1. Devaluing the health and well-being of all Americans

The Clean Power Plan would deliver tremendous benefits to American communities by reducing harmful pollution. For example, EPA estimates the Clean Power Plan will prevent up to 3,600 premature deaths and 90,000 childhood asthma attacks every year once it is fully implemented.

But in a vivid example of how little Administrator Pruitt prioritizes public health, this proposal uses discredited methods to justify the view that premature deaths and other significant health impacts from harmful air pollution don’t exist and don’t matter. It even undercuts the harms we face from carbon pollution by using methods at odds with leading experts, including the National Academy of Sciences.

Administrator Pruitt is trying to paint over the fact that undoing the Clean Power Plan will expose Americans to dirtier air, and will delay urgently needed action to address climate change.

Asthma attacks, heart attacks, floods and storm surges, wildfires, droughts, and heat waves hurt real people. EPA has a responsibility to protect the public — but Pruitt has made a priority of protecting the fossil fuel interests that have propelled his political career.

2. Repeal-without-replace

Across America, the past weeks of extreme weather have provided a tragic reminder of the threats we face from climate change. Hurricanes exacerbated by climate change – like Maria, Harvey, and Irma – have left millions reeling, with lives lost and communities profoundly disrupted for years to come.

Yet the draft proposal makes no commitment to protect Americans from dangerous climate change. Instead it “continues to consider” whether to protect Americans from carbon pollution from existing power plants (ignoring settled law that EPA must issue safeguards against climate pollution under the Clean Air Act – as the Supreme Court has already concluded three times.)

Administrator Pruitt chastised others for asking about climate change after Hurricanes Harvey and Irma hit, saying the timing was “insensitive.” But at that same time, he was working to roll back our nation’s most significant effort to protect Americans from climate change.

3. America should be moving ahead on clean power – not going backwards

Power market trends are moving towards cleaner power sources, creating jobs and shared economic prosperity across the country.

More and more evidence shows that achieving the Clean Power Plan’s goals will be even cheaper than expected. Yet Administrator Pruitt’s draft uses accounting gimmicks to claim costs would somehow be higher than originally anticipated.

If anything, the Clean Power Plan’s targets should be stronger. But Administrator Pruitt now seems to be pulling out the stops to shield polluting power plants from taking any steps to reduce their harmful impacts.

4. Who benefits? Pruitt’s political allies

Scott Pruitt built his political career by suing relentlessly to block EPA safeguards, including the Clean Power Plan.

Pruitt’s campaigns and political organizations received extensive contributions from Clean Power Plan opponents, including $25,000 from coal company Murray Energy just one month before the Clean Power Plan oral argument.

Those Clean Power Plan opponents now stand to benefit from this draft proposal – at the expense of the health and safety of American families.

5. Americans speak out for the Clean Power Plan

When President Trump issued an executive order in March that threatened to roll back the Clean Power Plan, Americans across the country responded with an outpouring of support.

Groups supporting the Clean Power Plan included: faith organizations; health associations; at least 75 mayors, state governors, and attorneys general representing nearly half the U.S. population; power companies; and leading companies like Apple, General Electric, and Walmart.

A similarly broad and diverse coalition has been defending the Clean Power Plan in court –including eighteen states and sixty municipalities across the country; power companies that own and operate nearly ten percent of the nation’s generating capacity; consumer and ratepayer advocates; and many others.

In a recent nationwide poll, almost 70 percent of Americans expressed support for strict limits on carbon pollution from existing power plants – including a majority of Americans in every Congressional district in the country.

Please join us to fight for the Clean Power Plan. You can take action here.

Posted in Basic Science of Global Warming, Clean Air Act, Clean Power Plan, Extreme Weather, News, Policy, Science / Comments are closed

Climate and clean energy progress continues in spite of Clean Power Plan repeal rumors

By Charlie Jiang / Published: October 5, 2017

According to news reports, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt is planning to start the process of repealing the Clean Power Plan very soon.

This seriously flawed and misguided effort would be a dangerous step backwards for public health and climate protections.

However, as the Trump Administration continues to unravel these protections, the transition to a clean energy future is accelerating. States, cities, and power companies are responding to the ongoing attacks by forging ahead with ambitious actions to slash carbon pollution in order to respond to the threat of climate change and accelerate the clean energy revolution.

Clean Power Plan repeal?

The Clean Power Plan is a common-sense rule to safeguard public health by reducing carbon pollution from power plants to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

The Clean Power Plan would prevent:

  • 3,600 premature deaths each year
  • 1,700 heart attacks each year
  • 90,000 asthma attacks each year

Administrator Pruitt reportedly intends to propose repealing the Clean Power Plan in the coming days.

If so, EPA will likely issue an “Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” (ANPR) to solicit public input on a replacement rule – a protracted process that is likely to lead to a far weaker standard.

The ANPR process could lead to years of harmful and unjustified delay in implementing urgently needed limits on carbon pollution from fossil fuel power plants.

Forging ahead to a clean energy future

The U.S. power sector has already made enormous strides in deploying clean energy resources and slashing greenhouse gas emissions.

American Wind Energy Association

 

Solar Jobs Census 2016 – The Solar Foundation, interactive map

Globally, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported yesterday that renewables accounted for almost two-thirds of new capacity installed.

  • Solar additions worldwide grew faster than any other fuel last year, including coal and natural gas.
  • Over the next five years, the IEA projects renewable capacity to grow by over 920 gigawatts – a 43 percent increase by 2022.

Meanwhile, by the end of 2016, carbon pollution from U.S. power plants had already declined to 25 percent below 2005 levels – meaning the power sector is already almost 80 percent of the way to achieving the Clean Power Plan’s 2030 targets.

A new report by the Institute for Policy Integrity highlights the falling costs of complying with the Clean Power Plan. The report points to several market and policy developments including low natural prices, declining renewable energy costs, the 2015 renewable energy tax credit extensions, and state programs supporting the adoption of clean energy technologies.

The Clean Power Plan targets have become a floor for forward-looking states and companies that acknowledge the Clean Power Plan was a first step towards realizing the promise of a low-carbon power sector.

Yet this shift towards clean energy – driven by market forces and accelerating subnational action – is no substitute for decisive federal action that will ensure continued and accelerated progress in achieving the emissions reductions required to stem the tide of climate change.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that without the Clean Power Plan, carbon emissions from the power sector will increase by 2030 – reversing the current downward trajectory in the United States and leaving the country behind as the global clean energy revolution continues.

To keep us moving forward, state and local officials are stepping up their game by cutting carbon pollution and switching to clean energy in spite of — and in direct response to — President Trump’s rollbacks.

  • Fourteen states and Puerto Rico, accounting for more than 10 percent of U.S. carbon emissions from the power sector, pledged as part of the new U.S. Climate Alliance to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement, as well as meet or exceed their Clean Power Plan targets.
  • 381 mayors (and counting) representing more than 67 million Americans also pledged to honor the Paris Agreement goals and work to meet the 1.5° Celsius global temperature target. Dozens of cities have committed to move to 100 percent clean energy.
  • Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed an executive order in July 2017 committing the state to slash greenhouse gas emissions to 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2026, consistent with U.S. goals under the Paris Agreement. “The vast majority of our residents, and indeed the country, expect us to help lead the way toward a clean and affordable energy future,” Governor Hickenlooper said in a press release.
  • Nine states comprising the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in August announced a proposal to cut carbon pollution from the power sector an additional 30 percent between 2020 and 2030 – a 65 percent reduction below the original 2009 pollution cap. The proposal demonstrates bipartisan commitment to combat climate change, with five Republican and four Democratic governors helming the RGGI states (Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont). Meanwhile, both New Jersey gubernatorial frontrunners have pledged to rejoin RGGI after this year’s election.
  • Virginia regulators are working to establish a “trading-ready” program to slash power plant carbon emissions in response to an executive order Governor Terry McAuliffe signed in May 2017. “Today, I am proud to take executive action to cut greenhouse gases and make Virginia a leader in the global clean energy economy,” Governor McAuliffe said when he signed the order.
  • California affirmed its position as a global leader on climate progress with a bevy of actions in the past year. In September 2016, legislators passed SB 32, which requires the state to slash greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. In July 2017, the state secured a 10-year extension to its landmark cap-and-trade program and strengthened tools to improve local air quality in a bipartisan effort. “All over the world, momentum is building to deal seriously with climate change,” Governor Jerry Brown said in July. “Despite rejection in Washington, California is all in.”
  • At least 20 states and the District of Columbia have adopted ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets, with most aiming for an 80 percent reduction by 2050 below baselines ranging from 1990 to 2006. Twenty-nine states and D.C. have binding renewable portfolio standards in place, while eight more have set renewable portfolio goals. Twenty states have set mandatory energy efficiency targets, while eight more have set energy efficiency goals.

The nation’s largest power companies are similarly pledging to slash carbon pollution and deploy renewable energy resources as they embrace the rapid transition to a clean energy economy.

  • The CEO of American Electric Power (AEP), the country’s largest generator of electricity from coal, had this to say in response to President Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement: “I think it’s really important for us to stay engaged from an international community standpoint, particularly addressing large issues. And not withstanding that, we’re continuing on our path of moving to a clean energy economy.” AEP has cut carbon pollution by 44 percent since 2005, and has plans to add more than eight gigawatts of wind and solar in the coming years.
  • Duke Energy, the nation’s largest power producer, this year announced plans to reduce carbon emissions to 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. “Our next major investment platform focuses on generating cleaner energy,” said CEO Lynn Good. “Our retirement of more than 40 older, less efficient coal units, coupled with the addition of clean natural gas plants and renewables, is driving our emissions reduction.”
  • DTE Energy Co. announced plans in May 2017 to curb its carbon emissions more than 80 percent by 2050 by closing coal-fired power plants and adding new gas-fired generation and renewables. “Not only is the 80 percent reduction goal achievable – it is achievable in a way that keeps Michigan’s power affordable and reliable,” DTE Chairman and CEO Gerry Anderson said. “There doesn’t have to be a choice between the health of our environment or the health of our economy; we can achieve both.”
  • Xcel Energy committed in June 2017 to achieving a 60 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, relative to 2005 levels. In August, the company announced plans to retire two coal-fired units in Colorado, continuing its progress towards a cleaner generating portfolio. In addition, Xcel’s massive new investments in renewable energy –including a proposal to add 3,380 megawatts of wind generation across seven states –will help the company generate 40 percent of its energy from renewables by 2021.
  • Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiary MidAmerican Energy has announced a goal to provide 100 percent renewable energy, including a $3.6 billion project to add 2,000 megawatts of wind, which will expand wind energy to 85 percent of the company’s sales. Said CEO Bill Fehrman: “Our customers want more renewable energy, and we couldn’t agree more.”
  • Minnesota Power, a division of ALLETE, plans to provide 44 percent of its electricity from renewable resources by 2025. Said one executive, “We look forward to working with our customers and regulators to continue down the path toward a safe, reliable, cleaner and affordable energy future.”

The imperative of addressing climate change, overwhelming public support for climate action, and clear market trends towards lower-carbon energy resources are driving states, cities, and power companies to lead the way to a low-carbon future.

If governors, mayors, and power sector CEOs continue to take steps to reduce carbon pollution, they will realize the tremendous benefits of a clean energy economy — thousands of new jobs, critical public health protections, and increasingly resilient communities and infrastructure.

The Trump Administration’s effort to repeal the common-sense Clean Power Plan – its latest attack on life-saving safeguards for our children’s health – will not change the reality of climate change or the accelerating transition to an economy powered by low-carbon energy.

However, without a quick return to meaningful federal progress, the U.S. will fall further behind in the global clean energy revolution – one that could lead to shared prosperity and enormous opportunities for millions of Americans.

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