Republicans’ Letter Warns EPA Proposed Clean Power Plan 2.0 Threatens Electric Grid

Twenty-six Republicans, led by Rep. Lloyd Smucker (PA), recently sent a letter to the EPA expressing concern that the Clean Power Plan (CPP) 2.0 is likely to threaten the reliability of the PJM Interconnection grid, which serves 65 million customers across Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

The letter comes as the EPA works to finalize “rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants [CPP 2.0],” the letter states. “The final rule targets coal and new natural gas-gas fired electric generation, exacerbating concerns with the reliability of the electric grid in PJM’s service area.”

In April 2024, the EPA announced its final set of rules to reduce pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants. The final suite of rules includes:

• A final rule for existing coal-fired and new natural gas-fired power plants, which would ensure all coal-fired plants that plan to run in the long term and all new baseload gas-fired plants control 90 percent of their carbon pollution.
• A final rule strengthening and updating the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) for coal-fired power plants, tightening the emissions standard for toxic metals by 67% and finalizing a 70% reduction in the emissions standard for mercury from existing lignite-fired sources.
• A final rule to reduce pollutants discharged through wastewater from coal-fired power plants by more than 660 million pounds per year, ensuring cleaner water for affected communities, including communities with environmental justice concerns that are disproportionately impacted.
• A final rule that will require the safe management of coal ash that’s placed in areas that were unregulated at the federal level until now, including at previously used disposal areas that may leak and contaminate groundwater.

Background

“The [CPP 2.0] builds on the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which aimed to cut carbon pollution from the power section by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030,” states a press release issued by Shelley Moore Capito. “The rule was implemented in 2015.  However, the Trump administration moved to kill the rule in 2019. The Supreme Court ruled in 2022, in West Virginia v. EPA, that the Clean Power Plan proposed by the Obama-era EPA in 2015 was unconstitutional since the EPA did not have the power to shift to cleaner energy sources.”

Stress to the electric grid

In his letter, Smucker included part of a statement issued by PJM in response to the EPA’s CPP 2.0:

“The future demand for electricity cannot be met simply through renewables given their intermittent nature. Yet in the very years when we are projecting significant increases in the demand for electricity, the Final Rule may work to drive premature retirement of coal units that provide essential reliability services and dissuade new gas resources from coming online. The EPA has not sufficiently reconciled its compliance dates with the need for generation to meet dramatically increasing load demands on the system.”

The letter sharply criticizes the EPA, stating, “The EPA’s overreach and unworkable mandates will create havoc in electricity markets, unreliability for distribution utilities, and economic hardship for businesses and families.”

The letter requests answers to the following questions, with an August 2, 2024, deadline:

1. “Administrator Regan said at a May 8, 2024 hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that he did not have a target date for EPA to begin rulemaking for emissions regulations on existing natural gas power plants, but committed to ‘move as quickly as possible.’  Will EPA commit to avoid finalizing any rulemaking for existing natural gas power plants until 2028, when demand for additional U.S. power generation has more than doubled from previous forecasts?
2. Did EPA or the White House consult with DOE, FERC, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), PJM, or any of the RTOs or independent system operators (ISO) regarding how this final rule would impact grid reliability and stability? If so, can you provide responses on reliability concerns that the RTOs and ISOs expressed to the EPA during the rulemaking process and after it was finalized?
3. Did EPA or the White House consider stakeholder feedback from electric power generation on how this rule would impact their ability to generate enough electricity to meet current and projected demand?
4. Did EPA or the White House consider stakeholder feedback from investor-owned utilities, publicly owned utilities, or member-owned or cooperative utilities, on how this rule would impact their contractual ability to provide electricity to customers?
5. Did EPA or the White House consider stakeholder feedback from manufacturing, agricultural, technological, or consumer stakeholder groups on how this rule would impact electric power delivery for customers and potentially lead to economic losses in the event of electricity rationing or rolling blackouts?
6. Did EPA or the White House consult with USDA on how this rule could impact the Nation’s food security and agricultural supply chains as electricity prices increase and reliability decreases?
7. Did EPA or the White House factor in the Administration’s push to national electrification of the transportation and home heating sector with this rule, which forces reliable, baseload power generation offline?”

“The forced closure of existing electric generation, coupled with a rushed transition to renewable energy sources without having the solutions in place to guarantee a reliable stream of uninterrupted power onto a grid already suffering from an interconnection backlog, will lead to both the rationing of electric power and an increase in electric costs for consumers,” the lawmakers’ letter warns.

Signatories to the letter include Reps. Troy Balderson (OH), Guy Reschenthaler (PA), Dan Meuser (PA), Alex Mooney (WV), Carol Miller (WV), GT Thompson (PA), Mike Carey (OH), Greg Pence (IN), Lauren Boebert (CO), Andy Barr (KY), Tim Walberg (MI), Rudy Yakym (IN), Scott Perry (PA), Kelly Armstrong (ND-AL), Brett Guthrie (KY), Hal Rogers (KY), John Joyce (PA), Bill Huizenga (MI), Robert Latta (OH), Brad Wenstrup (OH), Tom Kean (NJ), Andy Harris (MD), Mike Kelly (PA), James Comer (KY), and Michael Turner (OH).

According to Smucker’s press release, the letter is also supported by American Electric Power (AEP), the American Petroleum Institute (API), Duke Energy Corporation, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.