The
House of Representatives passed a Federal budget for 2014-2015 that stopped
funding for EPA to work on its Clean Power Plan. Now the Senate Majority
Leader may
well be from one of the 12 coal States that is suing to stop EPA’s Clean Power
Plan. A rider to a difficult to veto budget bill might attempt to stop EPA work
on the Clean Power Plan.
The Clean Power Plan includes a goal
to reduce US emissions from the electric power by 30% below a baseline for
2005. Emissions from US electric power generation are already 15.8% below the
2005 base line in part because of a shift of about 10% of electric power
generation from coal to cheaper natural gas. Natural gas has about half the greenhouse
gas emissions of coal and 100 times the greenhouse gas emissions of renewables.
By 2016 States will develop plans to reduce electric power emissions by 2030 if
the Clean Power Plan proceeds.
The US Energy Information Agency has
predicted what will happen without the Clean Power Plan. The US will use 25%
more electric power by 2040 and the source of that power will be the same
amount of coal as is used today, the same amount of nuclear energy as is used
today, twice the renewables used today (which will provide one-third of the
increased power demanded), and enough additional natural gas to provide the
additional two-thirds of additional electric power in 2040. Instead of reducing
greenhouse gas emissions by the additional 14% needed to reach the goal of 30%
fewer emissions (than in 2005) by 2030, we would be on track to increase
emissions much closer to the 2005 baseline.
US leadership at the International
Panel on Climate Change meeting in Paris in February 2015 depends on a strong commitment
to the Clean Power Plan. Congress take note!
Clean Power Plan
