The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, the Arkansas Public Service Commission and the Arkansas Economic Development Commission will host their first stakeholder meeting today on implementing the Clean Power Plan in the state.
The Clean Power Plan is a federal rule written by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that was finalized and released Aug. 3. It mandates reducing carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants, particularly coal plants.
Nationally, power plants must reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent by 2030 from 2005 emission levels. In Arkansas, that percentage is 36 -- lower than the 45 percent initially proposed by the EPA.
Department of Environmental Quality officials expect to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 12.7 percent by 2020 without any Clean Power Plan-related controls.
Exactly how the state will comply, how much each plant will have to reduce emissions and how much ratepayers' bills could change in the future are all unknown.
"It'll require quite a bit of analysis and work to try and determine how to comply with it," said John Bethel, executive director of the Public Service Commission. The commission reviews the costs of compliance for rules and hears requests from utilities regarding electricity rates, from which finances are often generated for projects.
Chuck Barlow, vice president of environmental policy and strategy at Entergy Corp., said the company has had 3,000 pages of analysis to read regarding the Clean Power Plan and still hasn't decided on which method of compliance it wants Arkansas to use.
"It's really complicated," he said although he added later that Entergy is leaning toward advocating for a mass-based approach to compliance, which is more flexible. The mass-based method is one of two that the EPA has offered to states for complying with the rule.
The mass-based method involves setting an allowance for each plant in terms of total emissions, which allows states to open up the trading of credits between facilities emitting too much and those that are under their allowances.
The alternative, rate-based method involves setting a state's target rate of pounds of carbon dioxide emitted per megawatt hour of electricity generated.
The stakeholder meeting -- which will include utilities, environmental groups, ratepayers and others -- will be held at the Department of Environmental Quality's 5301 Northshore Drive headquarters in North Little Rock from 9:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. The meeting will break for lunch from noon until 1:15 p.m.
The meeting will include roundtable discussions among all stakeholders regarding their initial reactions to the plan and expectations for the stakeholder process.
The state has until Sept. 6, 2016, to submit a state method for implementing the plan or to ask the EPA to extend that deadline to 2018. States must meet interim goals by 2022 and final goals by 2030.
Proponents of the rule argue that it will help mitigate climate change and, by so doing, improve public health and the environment.
The Clean Power Plan encourages increased use of natural gas and renewable sources in electricity generation and discourages the building of new, cleaner coal plants to supplement existing power plants.
Opponents of the rule say provisions within it exceed the EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act. Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge joined the state in a lawsuit against the Clean Power Plan that argues that the EPA can regulate only emissions, not emissions sources.
In neighboring Oklahoma, Gov. Mary Fallin issued an executive order in April -- before the final version of the plan came out -- prohibiting the state from issuing a plan to comply with the rule.
Arkansas officials have opted to begin the stakeholder process regardless of the lawsuit.
Metro on 10/09/2015