![]() Building block three worked like building block two, except that the shift was from both coal and gas plants to renewables, mostly wind and solar. ![]() This would reduce carbon dioxide emissions because natural gas plants produce less carbon dioxide per unit of electricity generated than coal plants. Building block two was a shift in generation from existing coal-fired power plants, which would make less power, to natural-gas-fired plants, which would make more. This sort of source-specific, efficiency-improving measure was similar in kind to those that EPA had previously identified as the BSER in other Section 111 rules.īuilding blocks two and three were quite different, as both involved what EPA called “generation shifting” at the grid level- i.e., a shift in electricity production from higher-emitting to lower-emitting producers. The first building block was “heat rate improvements” at coal-fired plants-essentially practices such plants could undertake to burn coal more cleanly. In the Clean Power Plan, EPA determined that the BSER for existing coal and natural gas plants included three types of measures, which the Agency called “building blocks.” 80 Fed. The limit then reflects the amount of pollution reduction “achievable through the application of” that system. that has been adequately demonstrated,” or the BSER, for the kind of existing source at issue. The Agency derives that limit by determining the “best system of emission reduction. Under that provision, although the States set the actual enforceable rules governing existing sources (such as power plants), EPA determines the emissions limit with which they will have to comply. Prior to the Clean Power Plan, EPA had used Section 111(d) only a handful of times since its enactment in 1970. For authority, the Agency cited Section 111 of the Clean Air Act, which, although known as the New Source Performance Standards program, also authorizes regulation of certain pollutants from existing sources under Section 111(d).Ĥ2 U. S. C. In 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promulgated the Clean Power Plan rule, which addressed carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal- and natural-gas-fired power plants. The Clean Power Plan “conveniently enabled" EPA to enact a program, cap-and-trade, that Congress rejected numerous times. Issues of electricity transmission and distribution are not within EPA’s traditional expertise. On EPA’s view of Section 111(d), Congress implicitly tasked it alone with balancing vital considerations of national policy. Under the major questions doctrine, an agency must point to “clear congressional authorization” for such an unprecedented exercise of authority. Restructuring the nation’s mix of electricity generation cannot be the BSER under Section 111. Congress did not grant EPA the authority to devise emissions caps based on the Clean Power Plan's generation-shifting approach. Circuit held that EPA’s repeal of the Clean Power Plan rested on a mistaken reading of the Clean Air Act and vacated the ACE rule. It was later repealed when EPA determined that it lacked authority “of this breadth.” EPA then promulgated the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, mandating equipment upgrades and operating practices. The Supreme Court stayed the Clean Power Plan in 2016. No existing coal plant could achieve the emissions performance rates without generation-shifting. An operator could reduce the regulated plant’s production of electricity, build or invest in new or existing equipment, or purchase emission allowances as part of a cap-and-trade regime. In the Clean Power Plan, EPA determined that the BSER for existing coal and natural gas plants included “heat rate improvements” at coal-fired plants and “generation-shifting,” i.e., a shift in electricity production from existing coal-fired to natural-gas-fired plants and from both coal and gas plants to renewables (wind and solar). Although the states set the enforceable rules governing existing sources, EPA determines the emissions limit with which they have to comply by determining the “best system of emission reduction” (BSER). In 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promulgated the Clean Power Plan rule, which addressed carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants, citing Section 111 of the Clean Air Act,” 42 U.S.C.
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