EPA’s Proposed and Final “Clean Power” Plan: Which Is Worse?

“Climate Rule Worse than We Thought,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) warned today in an email alert about EPA’s so-called Clean Power Plan (CPP). He explains:

The final rule cuts coal, which today provides about 39 percent of the country’s electricity, even more than the administration proposed in June 2014. The rule also relies heavily on renewables, which only provide five percent of energy today despite significant investments. And it eliminates the move to natural gas that created thousands of jobs across the country. This all means electricity bills will go up, and jobs will be lost.

Barrasso’s chart illustrates the final CPP’s more aggressive market-rigging tilt against affordable, reliable coal and gas in favor of costly, intermittent renewables.

Quoting Hilary Clinton’s statement that the CPP is “the floor, not the ceiling,” Barrasso cautions that if climate crusaders get their way, they will try to de-carbonize “transportation, manufacturing, buildings, and agriculture,” and soon target natural gas. In fact, he points out, a White House fact sheet boasts the final CPP eliminates the “early rush to gas” tolerated in the proposed rule as the bridge to a low-carbon future.