New proposed Environmental Protection Agency rules governing power plant greenhouse gas performance standards may prove too costly and burdensome, asserts the chair and long-standing member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
In a letter to Michael Regan, the administrator of the EPA, Representative Cathy McMorris Rogers of Washington said that the proposed “New Source Performance Standards for Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” represents a “byzantine network” of standards “across numerous categories for new, modified, and existing coal, natural gas, and oil-fired power plants.”
In subsequent testimony before the Energy and Commerce Committee, Rogers also remarked that an ongoing EPA effort to shut down the nation’s coal-fired power plants could prove economically ruinous.
“These efforts to transform the nation’s electricity system would have damaging and lasting effects on reliability for Americans across the country and would go well beyond the EPA’s Congressionally mandated authority,” Rogers said.
The EPA has said the new performance standards would apply to greenhouse gas emissions from all matter of fossil fuel-fired electric generation units.
The proposed rule, as published in the Federal Register, would importantly require the implementation of carbon capture and sequestration/storage technologies at such plants by the year 2035.
The new proposed EPA rules, said Rogers, would “affect the entire U.S. coal generating fleet, all natural gas power plants, as well as existing plants producing more than 300 megawatts of power.”
The Congresswoman adds: “These changes will have a chilling effect on American natural gas, which is critical for generating electricity across the country.”
Public comments on the EPA’s proposal will be accepted until July 24.
By Garry Boulard
