According to EPA, power plants are the largest drivers of climate change in the United States, accounting for roughly one-third of all carbon pollution emissions, but there were no national limits on carbon pollution.
Advertisement
The new plan aims to cut carbon emissions from the power sector by 32% by 2030.
“The President’s Climate Action Plan, including today’s final Clean Power Plan, is already working to comprehensively drive down US emissions, and lead the way for our worldwide partners”, Kerry said.
It is equivalent of taking 166 million cars off the road, Obama said yesterday to announce his new goals in reducing emissions from the coal-fired power plants.
However, Steven Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), said, “EPA and the President have made it clear that investing in energy efficiency will be a major opportunity for states looking for ways to comply with the Clean Power Plan rule”. The target is more ambitious than the 30 per cent that was originally proposed, but states will have two additional years to present and then finalise their plans, giving states until 2018 to submit their plans and until 2022 to bring them into force. “This is one of those rare issues, because of its magnitude…that if we don’t get it right, we may not be able to reverse”. Climate change puts those Americans at greater risk of landing in the hospital.
“I believe there is such a thing as being too late”, he said.
If the Clean Power Plan can weather that storm, though, it will likely stand as the most significant piece of environmental policy enacted by the Obama Administration.
In face of the criticism, the White House said the release of the plan was “the starting gun for an all-out climate push” by the president and his cabinet.
Montana Governor Bullock expressed his disapointment with the final plan, saying that he felt that “the Obama administration has moved the goal post on us”.
Lee Boughey, Tri-State’s senior manager of corporate communications and public affairs, said Tri-State has concerns about the plan but will work to minimize the impact on rural consumers and its employees. “It will form the foundation of the country’s efforts to take on climate change for decades to come”.
Advertisement
The Kansas Sierra Club’s Energy Chair, Bill Griffith, says if Kansas allows the EPA to impose a federal plan, rather than submitting a state plan, it will make life more hard for utilities that rely heavily on coal.
