SACE Celebrates Historic Federal Rules To Curb Dangerous Power Plant Pollution
New rules stand as a wake-up call to Southeast utilities, regulators, and lawmakers
Today, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under President Biden’s leadership released an important set of pollution limitations for power plants, placing limitations on carbon dioxide emissions, mercury and air toxics, effluent limitation guidelines, and coal ash. Burning coal and gas for electricity generation emits about a quarter of all the climate pollution across the country, yet until now, this pollution has been essentially unregulated by the federal government. Today’s announcements begin to change that.
SACE will host a webinar on May 7 at 1:00 PM ET, featuring Carrie Jenks, Executive Director of the Harvard Law School Environmental & Energy Law Program, to discuss the new power plant carbon rules and how they may affect the Southeast. SACE Research Director Maggie Shober will discuss context for our region’s major utilities’ current energy portfolios and proposals, including Duke Energy, Southern Company, TVA, and Dominion Energy South Carolina.
Webinar: New Power Plant Carbon Rules & The Southeast
Tuesday, May 7, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET
Register
The major utilities in our region are proposing to build more new fossil gas power capacity than any other utilities in the country: TVA has the most aggressive plan through 2028, with Duke having the largest planned gas build overall, most of which is set to go online in the late 2020s and early 2030s.
Ultimately, today’s announcement is a wake-up call to Southeast utilities, regulators, and lawmakers, that the status quo of building large unabated baseload fossil gas plants can’t continue. The power plant rules are substantive and final, and utilities and regulators need to treat them as such. Even though EPA has had the proposed version of these rules on the books for about a year, major utilities, including Duke, Georgia Power, TVA, Dominion Energy South Carolina, and Santee Cooper have failed to adequately plan to comply with the rules, while committing tens of billions of ratepayers’ dollars to gas projects subject to these rules. Today’s announcement sends a clear signal: utilities and regulators must rethink the reckless drive toward a risky gas-dominant future.
Register for the webinar
Read the blog post: Historic Federal Rules Will Curb Dangerous Power Plant Pollution
About the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
Since 1985, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy has worked to promote responsible and equitable energy choices to ensure clean, safe, and healthy communities throughout the Southeast. Learn more at www.cleanenergy.org.