Republicans are doing the bidding of their fossil
fuel masters by distorting President Obama’s historic clean power plant
plan, but here are the facts that you need to know in order to fight
back.
The White House has released a Fact Sheet that delivers the truth about the President’s plan:
Today at the White House, President Obama and Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy will release the final Clean
Power Plan, a historic step in the Obama Administration’s fight against
climate change.
We have a moral obligation to leave our children a
planet that’s not polluted or damaged. The effects of climate change are
already being felt across the nation. In the past three decades, the
percentage of Americans with asthma has more than doubled, and climate
change is putting those Americans at greater risk of landing in the
hospital. Extreme weather events – from more severe droughts and
wildfires in the West to record heat waves – and sea level rise are
hitting communities across the country. In fact, 14 of the 15 warmest
years on record have all occurred in the first 15 years of this century
and last year was the warmest year ever. The most vulnerable among us –
including children, older adults, people with heart or lung disease, and
people living in poverty – are most at risk from the impacts of climate
change. Taking action now is critical.
The Clean Power Plan establishes the first-ever
national standards to limit carbon pollution from power plants. We
already set limits that protect public health by reducing soot and other
toxic emissions, but until now, existing power plants, the largest
source of carbon emissions in the United States, could release as much
carbon pollution as they wanted.
The final Clean Power Plan sets flexible and
achievable standards to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent
from 2005 levels by 2030, 9 percent more ambitious than the proposal. By
setting carbon pollution reduction goals for power plants and enabling
states to develop tailored implementation plans to meet those goals, the
Clean Power Plan is a strong, flexible framework that will:
· Provide significant public health benefits – The Clean Power
Plan, and other policies put in place to drive a cleaner energy sector,
will reduce premature deaths from power plant emissions by nearly 90
percent in 2030 compared to 2005 and decrease the pollutants that
contribute to the soot and smog and can lead to more asthma attacks in
kids by more than 70 percent. The Clean Power Plan will also avoid up to
3,600 premature deaths, lead to 90,000 fewer asthma attacks in
children, and prevent 300,000 missed work and school days.
· Create tens of thousands of jobs while ensuring grid reliability;
· Drive more aggressive investment in clean energy
technologies than the proposed rule, resulting in 30 percent more
renewable energy generation in 2030 and continuing to lower the costs of
renewable energy.
· Save the average American family nearly $85 on
their annual energy bill in 2030, reducing enough energy to power 30
million homes, and save consumers a total of $155 billion from
2020-2030;
· Give a head start to wind and solar deployment and
prioritize the deployment of energy efficiency improvements in
low-income communities that need it most early in the program through a
Clean Energy Incentive Program; and
· Continue American leadership on climate
change by keeping us on track to meet the economy-wide emissions targets
we have set, including the goal of reducing emissions to 17 percent
below 2005 levels by 2020 and to 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by
2025.
KEY FEATURES OF THE CLEAN POWER PLAN
The final Clean Power Plan takes into account the
unprecedented input EPA received through extensive outreach, including
the 4 million comments that were submitted to the agency during the
public comment period. The result is a fair, flexible program that will
strengthen the fast-growing trend toward cleaner and lower-polluting
American energy. The Clean Power Plan significantly reduces carbon
pollution from the electric power sector while advancing clean energy
innovation, development, and deployment. It ensures the U.S. will stay
on a path of long-term clean energy investments that will maintain the
reliability of our electric grid, promote affordable and clean energy
for all Americans, and continue United States leadership on climate
action. The Clean Power Plan:
– Provides Flexibility to States to Choose How to
Meet Carbon Standards: EPA’s Clean Power Plan establishes carbon
pollution standards for power plants, called carbon dioxide (CO2)
emission performance rates. States develop and implement tailored plans
to ensure that the power plants in their state meet these standards-
either individually, together, or in combination with other measures
like improvements in renewable energy and energy efficiency. The final
rule provides more flexibility in how state plans can be designed and
implemented, including: streamlined opportunities for states to include
proven strategies like trading and demand-side energy efficiency in
their plans, and allows states to develop “trading ready” plans to
participate in “opt in” to an emission credit trading market with other
states taking parallel approaches without the need for interstate
agreements. All low-carbon electricity generation technologies,
including renewables, energy efficiency, natural gas, nuclear and carbon
capture and storage, can play a role in state plans.
– More Time for States Paired With Strong Incentives
for Early Deployment of Clean Energy: State plans are due in September
of 2016, but states that need more time can make an initial submission
and request extensions of up to two years for final plan submission.
The compliance averaging period begins in 2022 instead of 2020, and
emission reductions are phased in on a gradual “glide path” to 2030.
These provisions to give states and companies more time to prepare for
compliance are paired with a new Clean Energy Incentive Program to drive
deployment of renewable energy and low-income energy efficiency before
2022.
– Creates Jobs and Saves Money for Families and
Businesses: The Clean Power Plan builds on the progress states, cities,
and businesses and have been making for years. Since the beginning of
2010, the average cost of a solar electric system has dropped by half
and wind is increasingly competitive nationwide. The Clean Power Plan
will drive significant new investment in cleaner, more modern and more
efficient technologies, creating tens of thousands of jobs. Under the
Clean Power Plan, by 2030, renewables will account for 28 percent of our
capacity, up from 22 percent in the proposed rule. Due to these
improvements, the Clean Power Plan will save the average American nearly
$85 on their energy bill in 2030, and save consumers a total of $155
billion through 2020-2030, reducing enough energy to power 30 million
homes.
– Rewards States for Early Investment in Clean
Energy, Focusing on Low-Income Communities: The Clean Power Plan
establishes a Clean Energy Incentive Program that will drive additional
early deployment of renewable energy and low-income energy efficiency.
Under the program, credits for electricity generated from renewables in
2020 and 2021 will be awarded to projects that begin construction after
participating states submit their final implementation plans. The
program also prioritizes early investment in energy efficiency projects
in low-income communities by the Federal government awarding these
projects double the number of credits in 2020 and 2021. Taken together,
these incentives will drive faster renewable energy deployment, further
reduce technology costs, and lay the foundation for deep long-term cuts
in carbon pollution. In addition, the Clean Energy Incentive Plan
provides additional flexibility for states, and will increase the
overall net benefits of the Clean Power Plan.
– Ensures Grid Reliability: The Clean Power Plan
contains several important features to ensure grid reliability as we
move to cleaner sources of power. In addition to giving states more time
to develop implementation plans, starting compliance in 2022, and
phasing in the targets over the decade, the rule requires states to
address reliability in their state plans. The final rule also provides a
“reliability safety valve” to address any reliability challenges that
arise on a case-by-case basis. These measures are built on a framework
that is inherently flexible in that it does not impose plant-specific
requirements and provides states flexibility to smooth out their
emission reductions over the period of the plan and across sources.
– Continues U.S. Leadership on Climate Change: The
Clean Power Plan continues United States leadership on climate change.
By driving emission reductions from power plants, the largest source of
U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, the Clean Power Plan builds on prior
Administration steps to reduce emissions, including historic investments
to deploy clean energy technologies, standards to double the fuel
economy of our cars and light trucks, and steps to reduce methane
pollution. Taken together these measures put the United States on track
to achieve the President’s near-term target to reduce emissions in the
range of 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and lay a strong
foundation to deliver against our long-term target to reduce emissions
26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. The release of the Clean
Power Plan continues momentum towards international climate talks in
Paris in December, building on announcements to-date of post-2020
targets by countries representing 70 percent of global energy based
carbon emissions.
– Sets State Targets in a Way That Is Fair and Is
Directly Responsive to Input from States, Utilities, and Stakeholders:
In response to input from stakeholders, the final Clean Power Plan
modifies the way that state targets are set by using an approach that
better reflects the way the electricity grid operates, using updated
information about the cost and availability of clean generation
technologies, and establishing separate emission performance rates for
all coal plants and all gas plants. .
– Maintains Energy Efficiency as Key Compliance
Tool: In addition to on-site efficiency and greater are reliance on low
and zero carbon generation, the Clean Power Plan provides states with
broad flexibility to design carbon reduction plans that include energy
efficiency and other emission reduction strategies. EPA’s analysis
shows that energy efficiency is expected to play a major role in meeting
the state targets as a cost-effective and widely-available carbon
reduction tool, saving enough energy to power 30 million homes and
putting money back in ratepayers’ pockets.
– Requires States to Engage with Vulnerable
Populations: The Clean Power Plan includes provisions that require
states to meaningfully engage with low-income, minority, and tribal
communities, as the states develop their plans. EPA also encourages
states to engage with workers and their representatives in the utility
and related sectors in developing their state plans.
– Includes a Proposed Federal Implementation Plan:
EPA is also releasing a proposed federal plan today. This proposed plan
will provide a model states can use in designing their plans, and when
finalized, will be a backstop to ensure that the Clean Power Plan
standards are met in every state.
Since
the Clean Air Act became law more than 45 years ago with bipartisan
support, the EPA has continued to protect the health of communities, in
particular those vulnerable to the impacts of harmful air pollution,
while the economy has continued to grow. In fact, since 1970, air
pollution has decreased by nearly 70 percent while the economy has
tripled in size. The Clean Power Plan builds on this progress, while
providing states the flexibility and tools to transition to clean,
reliable, and affordable electricity.
