E.P.A. to Propose First Controls on Greenhouse Gases From Power Plants

LewisBraham

Interesting to see how XLU and utility stocks perform on Monday: https://nytimes.com/2023/04/22/climate/epa-power-plants-pollution.html
If the stocks rise or do nothing, it means Wall Street thinks the regs will never pass. The regs are bad news for the stocks, but good news for the planet. Such regs are long overdue. An excerpt:

WASHINGTON — President Biden’s administration is poised to announce limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that could compel them to capture the pollution from their smokestacks, technology now used by fewer than 20 of the nation’s 3,400 coal and gas-fired plants, according to three people who were briefed on the rule.

If implemented, the proposed regulation would be the first time the federal government has restricted carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants, which generate about 25 percent of the planet-warming pollution produced by the United States. It would also apply to future plants.

Almost all coal and gas-fired power plants would have to cut or capture nearly all of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2040, according to the people familiar with the regulation, who asked not to be identified because the rule has not been made public.

The proposed rule is sure to face opposition from the fossil fuel industry, power plant operators and their allies in Congress. It is likely to draw an immediate legal challenge from a group of Republican attorneys general that has already sued the Biden administration to stop other climate policies. A future administration could also weaken the regulation.

WABAC

Likely good news for GRID, CTEC, CTEX, among others.

LewisBraham

I expect a bill drafted by the House GOP in response with the words “Energy Freedom” in it imminently, something like the Keeping Our Energy Freedom bill. There will be much usage of the word “woke” as well.

Mark

Earth Day is a good day to bring these proposals to the forefront. I'll let Heather Cox Richardson tell you why. Enjoy.

Happy Earth Day

LewisBraham

+1 Good article, Mark. Hard to imagine the two parties getting along like that today to solve a real problem, but one can dream.

msf

Don't getting too misty-eyed over that time. Congress passed some of the most detailed, constraining legislation (even by Congressional standards), because it didn't trust Nixon to faithfully execute the laws if they gave him any wiggle room. I've studied the key statutes a little can attest to that characterization.

Two parties working together? Trust Nixon? In 1972 he vetoed the Clean Water Act. Congress overrode the veto.

An example of what an administration can do given any wiggle room is the Trump administration revocation of Obama's 2015 Clean Water Rule that clarified (and partially restored) the scope of the Clean Water Act.

But sometimes that wiggle room doesn't really exist - administrations can't just ignore details of the statutes:

U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Marquez in Arizona, an Obama appointee... determin[ed] that the Trump administration’s rule last year improperly limited the scope of clean water protections. Marquez said the Environmental Protection Agency had ignored its own findings that small waterways can affect the well-being of the larger waterways they flow into.

https://apnews.com/article/environment-and-nature-2998bdb80aadc14ef8d4c6d2fe040988
https://earthjustice.org/brief/2021/clean-water-protections-restored-for-millions-of-streams-and-wetlands

Current status (for now): https://www.npr.org/2022/12/30/1146355861/epa-water-protections-wetlands-rule

LewisBraham

@msf Obviously, Nixon was a disaster in many ways, yet even the meager level of collaboration between parties that existed back then is astonishing compared to the completely disastrous tribal warfare that exists today if you read Richardson’s article.

sma3

@LewisBraham

You should consider signing up for Richardson's daily free email. She really does a great job of analyzing politics from a historical perspective. The only downside is it is depressing to see how bad things are. It is a bit encouraging when you read her discussions of how the nation survived even worse times in the past ( ie Rutherford Hayes previously an abolitionist, agreed to end Reconstruction to win Southern electoral college votes, and allowed the KKK to get going)

As far as the carbon remediation, I think 2040 is probably too soon to expect complete elimination, given the available but it is a good goal

Old_Joe

And to receive Richardson's daily free email "Letters from an American", here's a link that should work:

Link