“Let’s embrace this plan and start building a cleaner America”, he added.
Administrator Gina McCarthy released the final Clean Power Plan, a historic step in the Obama Administration’s fight against climate change.
Administered by the US Environmental Protection Agency, the scheme gives each state a carbon reduction target. “Today marks the end of an era for dirty power plants that have spewed risky pollution into our air without limits for too long.”. That followed a ruling in 2007 in which the court suggested the EPA had a duty to regulate carbon pollution, and it rebuked the George W. Bush administration for declining to adopt tighter emission standards for new vehicles. “This will help them retain customers, provide more reliable service options at the same time supporting reductions in their carbon footprints”. It will save lives and create jobs in red and blue states alike.
Under the new Clean Power Plan, each state has one year to prepare and submit a detailed 15-year program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal-fired power plants.
The plan also places more of an emphasis on allowing states to cooperate to meet regional goals, which could spur large-scale renewable energy projects in Arizona because developers would have a larger potential consumer base, said Edward Burgess, staff researcher for the Arizona State University Energy Policy Innovation Council.
In effect, Obama’s announcement is legislation by regulation. Last November, he pledged, in a joint announcement with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, to cut US emissions.
So instead of getting in a frenzy, other states could take a page from California’s book. “I am pleased that the EPA has recognized the unique circumstances Alaska is facing, and I look forward to working with the agency officials to come up with appropriate goals for the state in the near future.”.
“The power plant sector is the largest single source – about 40 per cent – of carbon emissions in the US”. Under the Obama plan, the percentage of electricity provided by coal would fall to 27 percent by 2030.
What’s released into the air from electricity generation, particularly from dated coal-fired plants, can have a harmful impact on air quality.
Jodi Perras with the Sierra Club says what’s important is that Indiana doesn’t drag its feet. Once cheap, coal is now expensive, crippled by pollution costs and undercut by renewables.
Madsen concedes the plan is likely to face legal changes in states in major coal producing states like Kentucky and West Virginia, as well as states with strong oil interests, such as Texas and Oklahoma, but he remains optimistic.
Evangelicals are often seen as in opposition to President Obama.
In short, this doesn’t have to be the economic doomsday scenario portrayed by congressional Republicans who have vowed to try to block the Clean Power Plan. The Court’s reasoning betrayed an impatience with deferring to the EPA.
Wind energy accounts for 28.5 percent of Iowa’s electrical generation – the highest of any state. Yet at the same time, electricity utilities are already striving for efficiencies, cutting emissions 13 per cent since 2005.
After a few days to digest the plan, energy experts in the state were hesitant to call the plan a complete game-changer for renewables.
“It will need defending”, she said. “The key to making these areas more resilient is collaboration through sound science and partnerships that take a landscape-level approach to preparing for and adapting to climate change“.
Wallach notes that the draft rules required a 19-percent reduction in carbon emissions from Kentucky by 2030, relative to its 2012 levles, but the final rules now require a cut of 41 percent.
A 2014 Pew Research Centre poll found a “solid majority” of Americans – 61 per cent – accept the world is warming.
Obama’s proposed reductions, however, would boost the nation’s health.
Not only is obstruction unpopular, but cooperation is popular (or at least harmless) with 63 percent of those polled saying they’d be more likely to support their member of Congress or that it would make no difference if they supported the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.
