CEI Submits Comments on EPA’s “Carbon Pollution Standards”

WASHINGTON, May 12 – Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellows Marlo Lewis and William Yeatman submitted comments to the Environmental Protection Agency opposing the EPA’s “Carbon Pollution Standards” on Friday, May 9. According to Lewis and Yeatman, the proposed regulation would effectively ban construction of new coal-fired power plants by requiring installation of carbon capture and sequestration technology, an exorbitantly expensive technology that isn’t yet market viable. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy also concedes the rule would have no impact on global temperatures, although the administration cites climate change as a reason these new standards are needed.

CEI Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis said:

  • The current proposal is a de facto fuel-switching mandate, which Congress clearly never intended.
  • A leaked OMB document and environmental group analyses indicates that the real purpose of the regulation is to establish the legal predicate for suppressing existing coal power plants via carbon cap-and-trade programs.
  • Public trust in government is in free fall. EPA cannot continue to steamroll through congressional gridlock and dictate climate policy without de-legitimizing itself.

CEI Senior Fellow William Yeatman said:

  • The Carbon Pollution Standards would actually increase greenhouse gas emissions. To be precise, a typical coal plant in compliance with EPA’s Carbon Pollution Standards would engender an additional 1.3 million kilograms of CO2 emissions annually.
  • Carbon capture and sequestration is neither “adequately demonstrated” nor “achievable” and is, therefore, an impermissible basis for the Carbon Pollution Standards.
  • Finally, in a separate comment, CEI’s Yeatman collaborated with Darin R. Bartram and Justin J. Schwab, of BakerHostetler in Washington, D.C., to rebut EPA’s argument that the Carbon Pollution Standard doesn’t conflict with the 2005 Energy Policy Act.

View the comments on EPA’s Carbon Pollution Standards:

Comments by Marlo Lewis

Comments by William Yeatman

Comments by Yeatman, Bartram, & Schwab

See also:

Top 6 Reasons EPA’s Carbon Pollution Standard Is Illegal

Carbon Emissions Rule: New Way to Skin the Cat—Or Same Old, Same Old?