The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing tougher regulations on air pollution that would overturn clean air regulations issued by former President George W. Bush’s administration.
The regulation will target power plant pollution that drifts across the borders of 31 eastern states and the District of Columbia. Air pollution is linked to thousands of asthma cases and heart attacks, and almost 2 million lost school or work days. Along with local and state air pollution controls, the new proposal, called the transport rule, is designed to help areas in the eastern United States meet existing national air quality health standards.
The transport rule would reduce power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide
(SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) to meet state-by-state emission
reductions. By 2014, the rule and other state and EPA actions would
reduce SO2 emissions by 71% over 2005 levels. NOx emissions would
drop by 52%, EPA said.
EPA air official Gina McCarthy told reporters the new regulation would cut sulfur dioxide emissions by a million tons more per year by 2012 than Bush’s 2005 Clean Air Interstate Rule would have.
The proposal would replace and improve upon the 2005 Clean Air
Interstate Rule (CAIR), which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.
Circuit ordered EPA to revise in 2008. The court allowed CAIR to remain
in place temporarily while EPA works to finalize the replacement rule
proposed today.
EPA is using the “good neighbor” provision of the Clean Air Act to reduce interstate transport, which is the upwind state emissions that contribute to air quality problems in downwind states. The proposed rule sets in place a new approach that can and will be applied again as further pollution reductions are needed to help areas meet air quality health standards.
SO2 and NOx react in the atmosphere to form fine particle pollution and ground-level ozone (smog), which are linked to widespread illnesses and premature deaths. These pollutants are carried on the wind to other states, contributing to health problems for their residents and interfering with states’ ability to meet air quality standards.
EPA said the new regulation will yield more than $120 billion in annual health benefits in 2014, including avoiding an estimated 14,000 to 36,000 premature deaths, 23,000 nonfatal heart attacks, 21,000 cases of acute bronchitis, 240,000 cases of aggravated asthma, and 1.9 million days when people miss school or work due to ozone- and particle pollution-related symptoms. These benefits would far outweigh the annual cost of compliance with the proposed rule, which EPA estimates at $2.8 billion in 2014.
EPA expects that the emission reductions will be accomplished by proven and readily available pollution control technologies already in place at many power plants across the country.
The transport rule also would help improve visibility in state and national parks and would increase protection for ecosystems that are sensitive to pollution, including streams in the Appalachians, lakes in the Adirondacks, estuaries and coastal waters, and red maple forests.
EPA will take public comment on the proposal for 60 days after the rule is published in the Federal Register. The agency also will hold public hearings. Dates and locations for the hearings will be announced shortly.
Read Reuters coverage at the link below.
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What this story doesn’t tell you is that emission allowances prices actually declined when the EPA released the news. This occurred because the EPAs proposal contemplates creating a new program to run concurrently with the existing program. This essentially guarantees that the cost of power plant pollution in the U.S. will be essentially zero until 2012 when the new program starts. The market was looking for the EPA to link the old program to the new program to prevent the value of pollution from declining in the transition period. The 1,300 page EPA proposed rule and thousands of pages of supporting documentation clearly indicate that the EPA knew that the price of allowances would decline when they released this proposal. The EPA essentially traded “now benefits” for the possibility of “future benefits”. And since the nearly 19-year old Clean Air Act is so complex and outdated there is a decent (50%) probability that this rule – like Bush’s CAIR rule – will be struck down in judicial review.