One of our 2018 goals is to continue working with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to replace the original – and illegal – Clean Power Plan (CPP) that was promulgated under President Obama – and then subsequently stopped by the U.S. Supreme Court.
When we met with EPA officials last year, we told them that replacing CPP with a workable plan for North Dakota’s seven lignite-based power plants was our highest priority.
On January 16, we submitted comments to the EPA that we hope sets the groundwork for what we want to see in a revised Clean Power Plan. In our comments, we laid out a critique of the original CPP starting with the overreach that included an illegally broad standard of performance. Rather than requiring states to submit plans that establish standards for individual power plants, the CPP required states to submit plans to regulate the whole electricity system in the state.
Since generation sources are very different from each other – think intermittent renewables versus reliable baseload generation – it made no sense in the real world to think that wind turbines and power plants were somehow interchangeable.
While the EPA under the Obama Administration attempted to make the case that the CPP provided flexibility to states and utilities, actually the opposite was true. By imposing aggressive timelines and emission limits, the states effectively would have had to comply with the requirements of the CPP with little to no deviation.
For North Dakota, which had a 45 percent reduction in carbon dioxide limit to reach, the CPP would have meant shuttering approximately half of the lignite industry – mines as well as power plants – to meet the reduction goals.
As EPA works toward a replacement, we are urging them to work with industry experts to craft regulations that are consistent with clean air legislation. One particular area that we hope is updated concerns New Source Review. As power plant owners look to upgrade generation sources to make them cleaner and more efficient, it would be helpful if these improvements wouldn’t trigger a full-scale review, which in the past has stymied certain plant improvements. Replacing the spark plugs can improve a car’s performance, for instance, but that doesn’t mean the owner of the car needs to replace the entire engine.
Looking ahead, the EPA has scheduled three more public input meetings:
- February 21 in Kansas City, Mo.;
- February 28 in San Francisco, Calif.; and
- March 27 in Gillette, Wyo.
It is our hope that energy and industry experts take these opportunities to raise important points with the EPA. Be assured that the Lignite Energy Council will make every effort to represent our industry.
Jason Bohrer
