MCCARTHY: EPA GHG RULES FOR EXISTING PLANTS TO BE ‘VERY FLEXIBLE’

Karen Frantz
GHG Monitor
12/06/13

The Environmental Protection Agency plans on being “very flexible” on the implementation of expected new proposed standards for greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal-fired plants that are due out in June 2014, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said this week. “We really want the states to step up and develop this plan,” McCarthy said at an event held by the Center for American Progress Dec. 2—a week before a planned trip to China that could help further climate change negotiations between the two countries. “It is not the intent of the federal government to take over their duties, but if they don’t perform as the Clean Air Act requires them to we will be forced to do that. We’ll do the best we can, but nobody’s better or would be better to design this in a way that makes sense for their own consumers, for their own energy mix, than the states.”

McCarthy said that in the rules for existing plants, there may be opportunities for states to align regionally, pointing to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an effort among Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states to cap and reduce carbon emissions from the power sector in which emission allowances are sold through auctions. McCarthy worked on the initiative as the Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. “It was an opportunity to develop significant funding for energy efficiency, to keep demand low and to deliver real cost savings to consumers at the same time as it kept all the lights on and reduced carbon significantly,” she said. She also pointed to California’s Assembly Bill 32, which requires the state’s emissions to be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020, as something “to pay attention to.”

She also spoke about the new source performance standards limiting greenhouse gas emissions from new-coal fired plants that the EPA proposed earlier this year, which essentially mandate the use of carbon capture and storage technology to meet the standards. “It really is a standard that has an impact right away, it sends a long-term signal,” she said, noting how heavily the standards rely on CCS. “So there’s no rush to complete this. We want to have as much comment and consideration as we can.”

Working with China

McCarthy spoke at length on U.S. efforts to work with China to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and said she believed the two countries are “well-positioned” to begin work together. She said both the U.S. and China, the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, need to be at the table if the global community is going to realize its goals of a lower-carbon future. “I think it’s extremely important that China be with us and be aggressive and be supportive of establishing some goals that we can all be proud of,” she said. She added that U.S. has been working with China already on reducing the impact of black carbon, methane and CO2 emissions and other pollutants, adding that China has set “aggressive” standards for themselves on carbon emissions.