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EPA’S CLEAN POWER PLAN
Legislature looks at who should oversee implementation within Colorado
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BY KENT SINGER || CREA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR || KSINGER@COLORADOREA.ORG
“What do you think we should do about climate change?” Plan. One key question is: what state If you want to break up a fun cocktail party or interrupt a agency should be in charge of this pleasant family get-together, ask that question. Everyone has process? Traditionally the Colorado an opinion on this topic. I bet if we surveyed the readers of Department of Public Health and Colorado Country Life, we would be hard pressed to find a Environment develops state impleconsensus on the right answer. I suspect the responses would mentation plans to regulate power fall generally into three categories: plant emissions like sulfur dioxide t “We don’t need to do anything. The climate has natural and nitrogen oxide. The Clean Power Kent Singer cycle and emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants Plan however, has more far reaching affects on power supply. and automobiles don’t cause climate change.” Further, it would seem logical that the agency that is tasked t “Climate change is an imminent crisis and we need to with keeping electricity reliable and affordable in Colorado, quickly and dramatically reduce our use of fossil fuels to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, should also have avoid an environmental and public health catastrophe.” an important role. t “Even if climate change is caused by human activity, we To that end, the Colorado General Assembly is considershould not wreck the U.S. economy by imposing costly ing a bill that would provide a framework for development carbon dioxide reduction rules since the developing of a state plan and submission of the plan to the EPA. Senworld will continue to use fossil fuels.” ate Bill 15-258 gives authority to CDPHE to develop a state Regardless of where you stand on this issue, the U.S. plan for carbon dioxide reduction, but it also requires that Environmental Protection Agency the plan be approved by the PUC and the proposed a set of regulations called the state legislature. We at CREA support SB Clean Power Plan that would require a 15-258 because we believe it is appropriate 30 percent reduction of carbon dioxide for the PUC, the agency that has the best emissions in the United States by the understanding of Colorado’s electric grid, year 2030. The Clean Power Plan estabto weigh in on a plan that will impact the lishes specific levels of carbon dioxide reliability and affordability of electricity in reductions in individual states based on Colorado. the EPA’s analysis of each state’s existing Some suggest that SB 15-258 is intended power generation portfolio and access to to slow down or interfere with the develalternative sources of energy. For Coloopment of a state plan for carbon dioxide The U.S. Environmental Protection rado, the EPA has set a carbon reduction reductions, but that is not the objective of Agency proposed a set of goal of 35 percent by the year 2030. the bill. The objective is to create an open regulations called the Clean Power The EPA proposal sets forth four and transparent process and to involve the Plan that would require a 30% “building blocks,” or strategies, for states appropriate experts, as well as our elected reduction of carbon dioxide to use to meet this target: 1) increased representatives. We believe that a thorough emissions in the United States power plant efficiency; 2) switching from process is necessary and appropriate given by the year 2030. coal-fired generation to natural gas; 3) the potentially costly requirements of the increasing the use of more renewable Clean Power Plan. resources, such as wind, solar and biomass; and 4) encouragAs I write this column, SB 12-258 passed through its first ing more energy efficiency by en-use consumers. Senate committee hearing with bipartisan support, and is The Clean Power Plan requires each state (except Vermont) awaiting action by the full Senate. By the time you read this, it to submit plans for achieving the required carbon dioxide is likely the outcome of the bill will have been decided; howemission reductions within one year of the issuance of the ever, even if the bill does not survive the legislative process final rules. Even though it is a certainty that the Clean Power this year, it will have sparked an important discussion on how Plan will be challenged in court (former Harvard law profesbest to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Power Plan in sor Laurence Tribe says the EPA has overstepped its legal Colorado. authority), states still face the daunting task of figuring out how to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the meantime. There are many questions about how states are supposed Kent Singer, Executive Director to regulate carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Power
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MAY 2015
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