Clean Power Plan

Aims

The final version of the plan aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electrical power generation by 32 percent within twenty-five years relative to 2005 levels. The plan is focused on reducing emissions from coal-burning power plants, as well as increasing the use of renewable energy, and energy conservation. White House officials also hoped that the plan would help persuade other countries that emit large amounts of carbon dioxide to officially pledge to reduce their emissions at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference.

Requirements

The plan will require individual states to meet specific standards with respect to reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. States are free to reduce emissions by various means, and must submit emissions reductions plans by September 2016, or, with an extension approval, by September 2018. If a state has not submitted a plan by then, the EPA will impose its own plan on that state.

The EPA divided the country into three regions based on connected regional electricity grids to determine a state's goal. States are to implement their plans by focusing on three building blocks: increasing the generation efficiency of existing fossil fuel plants, substituting lower carbon dioxide emitting natural gas generation for coal powered generation, and substituting generation from new zero carbon dioxide emitting renewable sources for fossil fuel powered generation.

States may use regionally available low carbon generation sources when substituting for in-state coal generation and coordinate with other states to develop multi-state plans.

Benefits

EPA estimates the Clean Power Plan will reduce the pollutants that contribute to smog and soot by 25 percent, and the reduction will lead to net climate and health benefits of an estimated $25 billion to $45 billion per year in 2030. That includes the avoidance of 140,000 to 150,000 asthma attacks among children and 2,700 to 6,600 premature deaths. EPA projects that the plan will save the average American family $85 per year in energy bills in 2030, and it will save enough energy to power 30 million homes and save consumers $155 billion from 2020-2030. The plan would create 30 percent more renewable energy generation in 2030 and help to lower the costs of renewable energy. It also would create hundreds of thousands of jobs, according to the NRDC.

According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), coal in 2015 in the United States produced 1,364,000,000 metric tons of CO₂ amounted to 71% of CO₂ emissions from the electric power sector. By switching this coal generation to a cleaner source such as wind power, emissions could be significantly reduced and electric power costs could be reduced. According to some studies, wind power has a lower cost per unit of energy produced than coal or natural gas.

2015 announcement

Obama announced the plan in a speech given at the White House on August 3, 2015. In his announcement, Obama stated that the plan includes the first standards on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants ever proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. He also called the plan "the single most important step that America has ever made in the fight against global climate change."

President Obama called his plan "a moral obligation" and made reference to the encyclical Laudato si' by Pope Francis.

The policy has been described as "[Obama's] most ambitious climate policy to date." In response to Obama's 2015 announcement, hundreds of businesses voiced support for the plan, including eBay, Nestlé, and General Mills. To show support for the Clean Power Plan, 360 other companies and investors sent letters to their governors. The companies and investors signing the letter represent all 50 states. In 2016, 2/3 of electric utilities support the plan.

Court Challenge

In the June 18, 2014 proposed rule, EPA argued that because the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendment is ambiguous, EPA's interpretation is entitled to judicial deference. EPA found the statute to be ambiguous because the language in the United States Code is from a May 23, 1990 House amendment that conflicts with a never codified April 3 Senate conforming amendment.

After the U.S. Supreme Court in King v. Burwell upheld the Affordable Care Act on June 25, 2015, however, the EPA adopted a more aggressive statutory interpretation. In the final rule announced on August 3, the EPA argued that the Senate's language unambiguously allows it to regulate, while the House language in the U.S. Code should be ignored because it is unreasonable under the Clean Air Act's "comprehensive scheme."

Opponents immediately declared the Plan was illegal, attempting to sue before the agency finalized the rule. Only ten days after the EPA announced the final rule, twenty-seven states petitioned the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for an emergency stay. Peabody Energy hired Laurence Tribe, President Obama's mentor at Harvard Law School, to author a brief which was later acclaimed on the Senate floor. Professor Tribe would go on to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee that the EPA's energy policy was "burning the Constitution."

Challengers argue that EPA overstepped its legal authority in issuing the CPP, in regards to the power plants covered by the plan, and that the scope of the "building blocks" for action go beyond standards applied to specific electric generating units, as called for by the Clean Air Act. Eighteen states have joined the litigation in support of the EPA's plan.

Supreme Court Halts Enforcement

On February 9, 2016, the United States Supreme Court ordered the EPA to halt enforcement of the plan until a lower court rules in the lawsuit against the plan. The 5-4 vote, split along ideological lines, was the first time the Supreme Court had ever stayed a regulation before a judgment by the lower Court of Appeals.

As of July 2016, several states - including Republican-held ones such as Wyoming, South Carolina, Virginia, Arizona, Idaho, and New Jersey - are moving forward to meet the Plan's requirements although sometimes indirectly, regardless of open opposition.

D.C. Circuit Court Hears Argument

On September 27, 2016, the case against the CPP was heard in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The chief judge of the court, Merrick B. Garland, recused himself, as he was also President Obama's US Supreme Court nominee.

The argument has sparked debate about both the constitutionality and the political effects of the Clean Power Plan. The New York Times Editorial Board published an editorial arguing that the D.C. Circuit should uphold the plan.