Ignore the hue and cry utilities have launched over EPA’s proposed new regulations to limit carbon emissions from power plants. The agency’s proposals are smart, essential, achievable, and long overdue. Any claims that these rules will stifle the economy or limit energy availability should be seen for exactly what they are: attempts to stoke fear about power shortages and price hikes so America’s worst climate polluters can continue to pollute regardless of the damage they do to our health and the health of our world.
The utility industry’s hysteria kicked into high gear in April when EPA announced that it is preparing new rules requiring coal- and gas-fired power plants to eliminate or capture the greenhouse gases they emit, sort of the way toddlers might throw a tantrum if you asked them to pick up the toys they’d strewn over the living room floor (only more serious). These power plants are the source of about one-quarter of the climate pollution in the US, second only to transportation.
Stopping those emissions is right and essential, given the way higher global temperatures are fueling extreme weather events, forest fires, flooding, and sea level rise.
Climate change is taking a toll on our health too. The American Lung Association’s 2023 “State of the Air” report declared that climate change is one of the biggest impediments to clean air that we face. “High ozone days and spikes in particle pollution related to heat, drought, and wildfires are putting millions of people at risk and making it that much more difficult for states and cities to keep the air clean.”
EPA’s proposals give the utilities until 2040 to comply with the new rules. That’s 17 years to do what needs to be done. And they can do it either by capturing the emissions from their smokestacks, switching to non-carbon based fuels, or a combination of the two.
The new regulations also give utilities time to capitalize on the surging demand for cleaner energy among consumers and businesses alike, demand that’s reflected in how much clean energy is already being produced. “Renewables are on track to generate more power than coal in the US,” Scientific American reported last year. Renewables are also creating thousands of jobs and funding the American economy. As of 2021, the Solar Energy Industries Association reports, “more than 255,000 Americans work in solar at more than 10,000 companies in every U.S. state. In 2021, the solar industry generated nearly $33 billion of private investment in the American economy.”
Ironically, despite the objections, as many as 850 utilities nationwide already offer their residential and commercial customers the opportunity to buy power that was not generated by coal or oil. Indeed, this “voluntary green power market” fueled over one million customers in 2020.
Carbon dioxide, once in the atmosphere, stays there for a very long time—from 300 to 1,000 years. “As humans change the atmosphere by emitting carbon dioxide, those changes will endure on the timescale of many human lives,” warns NASA. That’s why the immediate goal needs to be to stop dumping more CO2 into our air as quickly as possible.
If utility power plants don’t stop belching CO2, we’ll never stop climate change.
Many of us are already doing our part. We’re driving more energy efficient vehicles, installing heat pumps, insulating our homes, replacing old appliances with energy-efficient models, using programmable thermostats to lessen our heating and cooling demands, and putting solar panels on our rooftops.
But we can’t do it all. Instead of fighting the inevitable, power plants should be making it as easy as possible for all of us—consumers, businesses, civil society—to switch to renewables. They need to be as “useful” as the word “utility” implies and help our communities, our country, and our world not just fight climate change, but beat it.
The new proposal is probably in for a bumpy ride. The Clean Power Plan instituted by the Obama administration ground to a halt after challenges by utilities and industries drove the US Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional. Fingers crossed the new regulations will be able to withstand the attacks utilities will no doubt lob their way.
TELL EPA: MOMS SUPPORT STRENGTHENING THE MERCURY AND AIR TOXICS STANDARDS