A Climate for Change: The EPA’s Limits on Emissions Are Important but Not Enough - Washington Post Editorial

The country is about to see its fiercest climate-change battle.  After years of congressional inaction, President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency is applying new rules to curb greenhouse-gas emissions from cars, trucks and — most controversially — power plants, the biggest national emitters.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he will try to restrict the EPA if Republicans take over the Senate.  Mr. Obama’s executive actions will be an issue in the 2016 presidential campaign.

The EPA has drawn up the best possible policy framework under current law, and it is much better than nothing.  Congress should not weaken the rules.  But lawmakers could significantly improve on them.

The Obama administration’s plan has three pieces.  First, the EPA has persuaded carmakers to nearly double the fuel efficiency of U.S. autos, in the process cutting their carbon emissions in half.  Second, the EPA placed limits on the carbon dioxide that new power plants can emit, virtually guaranteeing that no more conventional coal-fired plants will be built in the United States.  Third, the EPA proposed in June a rule that would restrict the emissions of existing power plants, cutting their carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2030.

The central criticism is that these rules, particularly the third, will exact extreme costs on the economy without reversing the rise in global temperatures.

But critics have been citing high-cost estimates based on faulty assumptions, and the EPA figures that its power plant rule, which gives utilities many years to comply, will peak at about $9 billion per year in 2011 dollars.  That’s a relative pittance in an economy that’s nearly $17 trillion and growing.  In return, the EPA projects health and climate benefits outstripping costs many times over.  Even if the EPA’s reckoning is significantly off, the regulations will do more good than harm — without even considering their importance in motivating other countries to act.

The EPA is starting the country down a carbon-reduction path, an important signal to Americans and foreigners seeking confidence that the United States will cut its carbon use.  But the regulations’ greatest contribution will come if they prod Congress to enact a plan that’s both more comprehensive and more efficient.  In our next editorial, we will discuss how Congress could do better, if and when lawmakers wake up.

A Climate for Change:  The EPA’s Limits on Emissions Are Important but Not Enough - Washington Post Editorial