He added that without imposing limits, “existing power plants can still dump unlimited amounts of harmful carbon pollution into the air weekly”.
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A year after proposing unprecedented carbon dioxide limits, the Obama administration was poised to finalize the rule at a White House event on Monday. Obama, in a video posted to Facebook, said the limits were backed up by decades of data and facts showing that without tough action, the world will face more extreme weather and escalating health problems like asthma.
President Obama intends to use the fresh rules to push other countries to commit to deep reductions in their own carbon emissions before a United Nations summit meeting in Paris in December, when a global accord to fight climate change is expected to be signed. “Not anymore”.
The new plan sets a goal of cutting carbon pollution from power plants by 32 per cent by the year 2030 compared with 2005 levels, while rewarding states and utility companies that move quickly to expand their investment in solar and wind power.
“You’re going to see a final rule that is in many ways stronger than the proposed rule, but at the same time gives states the flexibility they need”, said an Obama administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“This proposed plan is already on shaky legal grounds, will be extremely burdensome and costly, and will not seriously address the global environmental concerns that are frequently raised to justify it”, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell wrote in a March letter to all 50 governors, urging them to simply ignore the EPA rule. It would have required states to submit plans for cutting carbon pollution by 2016, with an option to extend the deadline to 2017, and it would have required states to put their plans in place and start demonstrating emissions cuts by 2020. Users may not download or reproduce a substantial portion of the AP material found on this web site.
In the works for years, the power plant rule forms the cornerstone of Obama’s plan to curb U.S. emissions and keep global temperatures from climbing, and its success is pivotal to the legacy Obama hopes to leave on climate change.
Together, the requirements would change the way the U.S. produces and uses electricity, continuing an ongoing wave of coal-plant shutdowns while offering legs up to natural gas, solar, wind and maybe nuclear. Affordable natural gas, which burns more cleanly than coal does, has taken a greater share of the market. The raw numbers don’t necessarily reflect the degree of difficulty: Washington, for instance, could meet most of its goal by closing one coal plant that’s already scheduled for retirement, EPA has said. But the final plan is expected to extend an earlier timetable for states to significantly cut planet-warming pollution from power plants, according to people familiar with the plan. The Supreme Court has also affirmed Obama’s authority to regulate pollution crossing state lines and to use the decades-old Clean Air Act to reduce greenhouse gases the legal underpinning for the power plant rule.
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With the end of Obama’s presidency drawing nearer, his climate efforts have become increasingly entangled in the next presidential election.
