WASHINGTON – (Reuters) – The Obama administration on Friday announced first-ever regulations setting strict limits on the amount of carbon pollution that can be generated by any new U.S. power plant, which quickly sparked a backlash from supporters of the coal industry and are certain to face legal challenges.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s long-awaited guidelines would make it near impossible to build coal plants without using technology to capture carbon emissions that foes say is unproven and uneconomic. The rules, a revision of a previous attempt by the EPA to create emissions standards for fossil fuel plants, are the first step in President Barack Obama’s climate change package, announced in June.
The revised rule contained a few surprises after the agency held extensive discussions with industry and environmental groups, raising concerns by industry that the EPA’s new restrictions on existing power plants, due to be unveiled next year, will be tough.
But the regulations announced on Friday cover only new plants. Under the proposal, new large natural gas-fired turbines would need to meet a limit of 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour, while new small natural gas-fired turbines would need to meet a limit of 1,100 pounds of CO2 per MWh.
New coal-fired units would need to meet a limit of 1,100 pounds of CO2 per MWh but would be given “operational flexibility” to achieve those levels, the agency said.
The most efficient coal plants currently in operation emit at a rate of at least 1,800 pounds of CO2 per MWh.
In a speech at the National Press Club in Washington on Friday, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy discussed the rationale behind the new rules, and defended Obama’s climate plan, which opponents say amounts to a “war on coal.”
“There needs to be a certain pathway forward for coal to be successful,” she said, adding that “setting fair Clean Air Act standards does not cause the sky to fall.”
Still, stocks of coal mining companies such as Alpha Natural Resources Inc, Peabody Energy Corp and Arch Coal Inc fell on Friday and are down more than 25 percent for the year to date.
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