TRENTON—The commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection issued a sharp statement against the Trump administration’s “so-called Affordable Clean Energy rule,” announced June 19, calling it “a betrayal of America’s future generations.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the same day that the Trump measure, “the final Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule,” replaces the Obama administration’s “overreaching Clean Power Plan (CPP) with a rule that restores the rule of law and empowers states to continue to reduce emissions while providing affordable and reliable energy for all Americans.”
The EPA says that the day’s actions are the culmination of “a review of the CPP, which was done in response to President Trump’s Executive Order 13873: Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth.”
According to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler in Washington, D.C., “The actions also follow challenges from a large number of states, trade associations, rural electric co-ops, and labor unions who argued that the CPP exceeded EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act, and an unprecedented stay of the CPP by the Supreme Court in 2016.”
Wheeler said, “Today, we are delivering on one of President Trump’s core priorities: ensuring the American public has access to affordable, reliable energy in a manner that continues our nation’s environmental progress.”
He added, “Unlike the Clean Power Plan, ACE adheres to the Clean Air Act and gives states the regulatory certainty they need to continue to reduce emissions and provide a dependable, diverse supply of electricity that all Americans can afford. When ACE is fully implemented, we expect to see U.S. power sector CO2 emissions fall by as much as 35 percent below 2005 levels.”
The ACE rule establishes emissions guidelines for states to use when developing plans to limit carbon dioxide (CO2) at their coal-fired power plants.
Specifically, Wheeler said, ACE identifies heat rate improvements as the best system of emission reduction (BSER) for CO2 from coal-fired power plants, and these improvements can be made at individual facilities.
States will have three years to submit plans, “which is in line with other planning timelines under the Clean Air Act.”
Commissioner Catherine McCabe speaks out
Wheeler’s press release arrived some 15 minutes after a brief reaction from NJDEP Commissioner Catherine R. McCabe.
She wrote, “By encouraging more coal-fired power generation, this federal action flies in the face of the scientific evidence that burning fossil fuels is causing climate change and harming the health of our people.”
McCabe added, “Instead of facing up to the urgent challenge of reducing carbon emissions, as New Jersey and many other states are doing, the Trump Administration is taking us backwards.”
McCabe is a public administrator and environmental lawyer who served as acting administrator of the EPA from January to February 2017.
Also contained in Trump’s rule are new implementing regulations for ACE and future existing-source rules under Clean Air Act Section 111(d).
Wheeler said the guidelines will inform states as they set unit-specific standards of performance.
For example, he said, states can take a particular source’s remaining useful life “and other factors” into account when establishing a standard of performance for that source.
“ACE will reduce emissions of CO2, mercury, as well as precursors for pollutants like fine particulate matter and ground-level ozone,” Wheeler asserted.
According to the EPA, in 2030, the ACE rule is projected to:
• Reduce CO2 emissions by 11 million short tons;
• Reduce SO2 emissions by 5,700 tons;
• Reduce NOx emissions by 7,100 tons;
• Reduce PM2.5 emissions by 400 tons; and
• Reduce mercury emissions by 59 pounds.
EPA projects that ACE will result in annual net benefits of $120 million to $730 million, including costs, domestic climate benefits, and health co-benefits.
Bipartisan group of former EPA chiefs take agency to task
McCabe is not the first to sound an alarm on Trump’s priorities for the national and world environment.
On June 11, former EPA Administrators Gina McCarthy, Christine Todd Whitman, William Reilly, and Lee Thomas testified at the EPA Management and Policy Challenges House Energy and Commerce hearing, uniting their voices in a show of force.
The four, who served under both Republican and Democratic administrations, criticized the new direction of the agency under Trump and urged Congress to exercise its oversight responsibility of the agency’s actions.
McCarthy said she found it “disconcerting” that “this collection of past EPA administrators feel obligated to testify together and individually to make the case that what is happening at EPA today is simply put, not normal and to solicit your help to get it on a more productive path.”
She said, “In my opinion, our beloved EPA is in serious trouble and if I am right, it means that American families are facing increasing risks to their health and well-being, especially the very young, the elderly and those living in poverty that are most vulnerable to the impacts of pollution.”
Whitman, a Republican and former Garden State governor who led the EPA under President George W. Bush, criticized the agency for rolling over for the industries it regulates and being woefully lax on climate change.
“There is no doubt in my mind that under the current administration, the EPA is retreating from its historic mission to protect our environment and the health of the public from environmental hazards,” she said in part.
More information, including a pre-publication version of the Federal Register notice and fact sheets, are available at epa.gov/stationary-sources-air-pollution/affordable-clean-energy-rule.
