Surging Renewables Frame EPA’s Historic Climate Rules

BREAKING: On Monday, President Obama will release the final version of America's Clean Power Plan—the biggest, most important step we've ever taken to combat climate change. If you agree that we can't condemn our kids and grandkids to a planet that's beyond fixing, share this video with your friends and family. It's time to #ActOnClimate.
Posted by The White House on Saturday, August 1, 2015

In its signature bid to reimagine America’s power infrastructure to help slow climate change, the Obama Administration has ratcheted up its demands and expectations for pollution reductions from America’s electricity sector for the years ahead.

Pointing to recent projections for rapid advances in renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s final version of the Clean Power Plan, which will be released and signed Monday by President Obama, sets a new, more ambitious benchmark for pollution reductions in the year 2030.

If legal challenges can be overcome, the historic rule will help spur closures at coal power plants.  Those will be replaced by new energy flowing from solar panels, wind turbines and other cleaner sources, complemented by reduced demand for electricity.

Obama’s second-term efforts to slow climate change are widely opposed by Congress, so the new rule relies on an existing law — the Clean Air Act of 1970 — to force states to reduce carbon dioxide pollution from power plants.

Basic details of the finalized rule were released to reporters Sunday, showing it’s expected to contribute to a national electricity mix containing 28 percent renewable energy in 2030.  When the draft plan was published a year ago, the EPA anticipated it would lead to an electricity mix containing 22 percent renewable energy by that time.

In a call with reporters Sunday, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said the “projection that we are seeing” from within the federal government for renewable energy growth “is much more aggressive than what we anticipated” last year.  “So we have larger amounts of renewables that are anticipated to be in the energy mix, regardless of this rule.”

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