Obama raises bar on cutting coal emissions

Arkansans denounce plan

President Barack Obama arrives Monday to speak about his Clean Power Plan in the East Room at the White House in Washington. The president is mandating even steeper greenhouse gas cuts from U.S. power plants than previously expected, while granting states more time and broader options to comply.
President Barack Obama arrives Monday to speak about his Clean Power Plan in the East Room at the White House in Washington. The president is mandating even steeper greenhouse gas cuts from U.S. power plants than previously expected, while granting states more time and broader options to comply.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama on Monday unveiled an aggressive plan to limit greenhouse gases emitted by the nation's power plants, declaring that time was running out to thwart the most dangerous effects of global climate change.

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AP

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy speaking Monday in the East Room at the White House in Washington said the administration will immediately issue a model federal rule that states can use to implement the new standards.

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A graphic shows the 16 states with more stringent emissions standards than the original proposal.

"No challenge poses a greater threat to our future and future generations than a changing climate," Obama said in a speech from the East Room of the White House as he announced his plan to address the planet's rising temperatures. "There is such a thing as being too late when it comes to climate change."

Obama called the new rules a public health imperative and "the single most important step America has ever taken in the fight against global climate change."

Even as Obama acknowledged resistance from coal-producing states and industry critics to a plan that could lead to the closing of hundreds of coal-fired plants, he said it was up to the U.S. to adopt tough standards so countries such as China would feel compelled to take similar steps.

"When the world faces its toughest challenges, America leads the way forward," the president said. "That's what this plan is about."

Obama said he would spend much of August talking about climate change, including during a trip this month when he will become the first American president to visit the Alaskan Arctic.

The rules, a final, stricter version of a plan the Environmental Protection Agency announced in 2012 and 2014, assigns each state a target for reducing its carbon pollution from power plants. States will be allowed to create their own plans to meet the requirements and will have to submit initial versions of their plans by 2016 and final versions by 2018.

The cuts will begin in 2022, which is two years later than the original deadline. In 2020 and 2021, states that invest in renewable sources such as wind and solar will earn credits that they can store away to offset pollution emitted later.

The most aggressive of the regulations requires that by 2030, the nation's existing power plants must cut emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels, an increase from the 30 percent target proposed in the draft regulation. Sixteen states will have tougher carbon dioxide reduction targets than they originally planned.

Some states, such as New Hampshire and Texas, face more lenient cuts in the final plan. Three states got a pass from the EPA and won't have to reduce emissions: Vermont, Alaska and Hawaii.

The final rule ended up with a more stringent target for emissions reductions for two main reasons -- renewable sources such as wind and solar are becoming cheaper and easier to build, and the EPA considered that states in some cases could easily source clean power from neighbors if they didn't have the capacity to generate it themselves.

Also, the states' ongoing efforts to reduce energy demand won't be included in their baseline measurements the way other factors, such as replacing coal plants with cleaner sources, will be.

"In the proposal we looked at each state in isolation," said Janet McCabe, acting assistant administrator for the EPA's office of air and radiation. "In the final rule we have opened it up so we could look at capacity for renewables and natural gas across the region."

Emissions targets have been loosened for 31 states, but the more stringent goals for the others make the plan more ambitious than originally proposed. Montana's target had been to cut its emissions rate 21 percent by 2030; now that goal is 47 percent.

The other states with toughened targets are Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The leaders of some states, such as Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, had sticker shock upon seeing the new regulations.

"The final rule released today is twice as bad for Kansas as the proposed rule released last summer," Brownback said.

"At first glance, it looks as though the Obama administration has moved the goal post on us. I am extremely disappointed by this," said Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana. "I understand that we need to address climate change, but how we do so has to work for Montana."

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead said the regulations exceed the government's authority, and North Dakota Rep. Kevin Cramer said he was looking for a judicial block that would allow Congress to repeal the rule.

Some state officials who oppose the rule have said they are considering not submitting a plan to the EPA. Any state doesn't file a plan, or submits one that is unworkable under the federal rule, will be forced to use a federal model, McCabe said.

In some of the states that rely less on coal-fired electricity, such as Nevada and Oregon, officials expressed their support and said they were well-positioned to comply.

"Nevada has been ahead of this curve for a long time," said Jennifer Taylor, executive director of the nonpartisan Clean Energy Project.

Threats of legal action began within minutes of Obama's announcement. In Texas, Kentucky, Kansas, Indiana and Wisconsin, top officials said they would vigorously fight the rule, as did energy producers like Murray Energy Corp., a coal mining company.

In the coal-heavy state of West Virginia, state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey predicted that 20 to 25 states would join his suit against the government.

"Their legal foundation is very, very shaky," Morrisey said of the Obama administration.

Entergy Arkansas

In Arkansas, a spokesman for Entergy Arkansas said the company will take time to study the rule and decipher its implications.

The company continues to be concerned about the legality of the EPA's approach, said Sally Graham, the utility's spokesman.

In its analysis, Entergy will focus on the compliance timeline, the requirements the rule will impose on each state, a state's ability to choose a mass-based approach, the effect the rule will have on the country's nuclear plants and the overall effect the rule will have on Entergy's customers, Graham said.

Arkansans on Capitol Hill released statements Monday denouncing Obama's proposal.

"The Clean Power Plan effectively amounts to a national energy tax and will have a devastating impact on the Natural State," said Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Dardanelle. "It will impose billions of dollars in new costs, leave us with a less reliable power grid, raise power bills for Arkansas families, and deal a crushing blow to the manufacturing sector of our economy."

Sen. John Boozman also criticized the administration.

"These news rules will drive industry overseas, hurting American workers and creating foreign factories that emit far more than we would," the Rogers Republican said. "We will fight this mandate in Congress and I suspect it will face strong legal challenges. ... The Administration has once again overstepped it bounds to enact policy that Congress would reject.

Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee also issued a statement, saying the "job-killing EPA rule is a handout to Chinese businesses, Arab oil sheiks, Russian energy despots, and Washington insiders completely detached from reality."

A Republican official in Little Rock said the plan will hurt Arkansans.

"In 2013, Arkansas received over half of its electricity from coal-fired power plants, and if this plan is fully implemented, Arkansas rate payers will certainly see their energy rates increase," Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said in a statement. "Today's plan is simply the wrong direction and completely ignores the concerns that have been raised over the past several years about anticipated cost increases."

Even before Obama began speaking, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he would do everything in his power to combat the rules, which he said the president had crafted because he was "tired of having to work with the Congress the people elected."

"That's why the administration is now trying to impose these deeply regressive regulations -- regulations that may be illegal, that won't meaningfully impact the global environment, and that are likely to harm middle- and lower-class Americans most -- by executive fiat," McConnell said.

"It represents a triumph of blind ideology over sound policy and honest compassion," he added.

Obama scoffed at the criticism of the plan, dismissing it as the "same stale arguments" from skeptics trying to thwart progress.

"The kinds of criticisms that you're going to hear are simply excuses for inaction," he said.

If the plan survives legal challenges, it could lead to the closure of many coal-fired plants, freeze construction of others, and lead to an explosion in production of wind and solar energy.

"We're the last generation that can do something about it," Obama said of climate change. Failing to address the problem, he added, would "be shameful of us. This is our moment to get this right and leave something better for our kids."

Obama also noted that Pope Francis in June issued an encyclical on climate change, calling action on the issue a "moral obligation."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Monday called the pope's climate encyclical "an important new effective asset" in pushing forward policy to slow global warming.

Pelosi said the encyclical, which called for a bold cultural revolution, carried a moral authority with the power to directly shape public sentiment on the issue and perhaps in turn influence members of Congress.

"Someone who might reject a policy initiative spoken by a government official in the United States really cannot ignore his holiness Pope Francis on this subject," Pelosi said during a visit to the Milan Expo 2015 world's fair on food-security issues.

She said the issue of climate change is growing more urgent.

"We don't want the Congress of the United States to be the last to realize our responsibility, once again, to our children and the future," she said.

Information for this article was contributed by Julie Hirschfeld Davis of The New York Times; by Colleen Barry, Josh Lederman, Matt Volz, Jonathan Fahey, Ken Ritter, John Hanna and Mead Gruver of The Associated Press; and by David Smith of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

A Section on 08/04/2015

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