Report presses case for rule on carbon

Economic hit cited to support Obama climate-change agenda targeting coal

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials (from left) Nick Hutson, Fred Thompson and Julia Miller listen to public testimony during a hearing on tougher pollution restrictions Tuesday in Atlanta.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials (from left) Nick Hutson, Fred Thompson and Julia Miller listen to public testimony during a hearing on tougher pollution restrictions Tuesday in Atlanta.

WASHINGTON -- Failing to adequately reduce the carbon pollution that scientists say contributes to climate change could cost the U.S. economy $150 billion a year, according to an analysis by the White House Council of Economic Advisers released Tuesday.

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The report is part of the White House's effort to increase public support for President Barack Obama's climate-change agenda, chiefly an Environmental Protection Agency proposal targeting coal-fired power plants. The EPA will hold public hearings, which are expected to be heated, on the proposal this week in Washington, Atlanta, Denver and Pittsburgh.

The rule could lead to the shutdown of hundreds of power plants, a decline in domestic coal production, an increase in electricity rates and a fundamental transformation of the nation's power supply.

The White House has repeatedly sought to make the case that the long-term cost of not cutting carbon emissions -- including predictions of longer droughts, worse floods and bigger wildfires -- will be higher than the short-term expense of carrying out the regulation.

Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said the report was intended to explain "why the administration is doing so many things on so many levels to deal with climate change." He added, "Each decade we delay action results in added cost."

The report concludes that climate-change costs will increase 40 percent for each decade that nations do not curb carbon emissions.

The White House report adds to a growing stack of research linking climate change to economic costs. A report titled "Risky Business," issued last month by a bipartisan coalition backed by Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, and Tom Steyer, a billionaire environmental activist, among others, also concluded that the long-term costs of carbon pollution would be greater than the expense of cutting emissions.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a state that is heavily dependent on coal, was expected to speak at the public hearing in Washington about losses of coal-mining jobs under the proposal. The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, which lobbies for the coal industry, said it would show videos criticizing the plan outside each hearing site.

Congressional Democrats are working on their own messages. The Senate Budget Committee, led by Patty Murray, D-Wash., has scheduled a hearing Tuesday to show the effect of climate change on the federal budget. Over the past decade, federal spending during droughts, floods and wildfires has reached record levels.

"It's becoming clearer and clearer that if you care about the deficit, you need to care about climate change," Murray said in a statement.

Democrats hope that argument will win over some fiscally conservative Republicans. Most Republicans have said the EPA climate-change rules exemplify what they call the Obama administration's overreach.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people lined up Tuesday to tell the EPA that its new rules either go too far or not far enough.

Coal mines, electric utilities, labor unions, environmental groups, renewable energy companies, government agencies, religious and civil rights organizations and others sent representatives to the hearings in Denver and the other cities.

John Kinkaid, a Moffat County, Colorado, commissioner, told the EPA in Denver the rules would devastate his area, home to a major power plant.

"Energy is the lifeblood of our economy," he said. "Moffat County deserves better than to be turned into another Detroit."

Retired coal miner Stanley Sturgill of Harlan County, Ky., traveled to Denver to tell the EPA that coal-fired plants are crippling his health and the public's. Sturgill said he suffers from black lung and other respiratory diseases.

"The rule does not do nearly enough to protect the health of the front-line communities," he said. "We're dying, literally dying, for you to help us."

With only five minutes each to address the EPA, scores of advocates in Denver staged rallies outside for or against the proposed rules.

"They're basically trying to shut down coal, which takes away my job," said Mike Zimmerman, a foreman at the Twentymile Mine in northwestern Colorado, who attended a rally sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a Tea Party group backed by Koch Industries.

At a rally staged by a group called Colorado Moms Know Best, Jaime Travis said the rules would cause some disruption but should be implemented.

"It won't be painless. But as a mother, I am truly worried about the future, not just of my state, but the country and the world," she said.

The Atlanta, Denver and Washington hearings continue today. The Pittsburgh hearings will be held Thursday and Friday.

Information for this article was contributed by Coral Davenport of The New York Times and by Dan Elliott and Ray Henry of The Associated Press.

A Section on 07/30/2014

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