Over the next 18 months, the Environmental Protection Agency will finalize a flurry of new rules to curb pollution from coal-fired power plants. Mercury, smog, ozone, greenhouse gases, water intake, coal ash—it’s all getting regulated. And, not surprisingly, some lawmakers are grumbling.

Industry groups such the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, and the American Legislative Exchange Council have dubbed the coming rules “EPA’s Regulatory Train Wreck.” The regulations, they say, will cost utilities up to $129 billion and force them to retire one-fifth of coal capacity. Given that coal provides 45 percent of the country’s power, that means higher electric bills, more blackouts and fewer jobs. The doomsday scenario has alarmed Republicans in the House, who have been scrambling to block the measures. Environmental groups retort that the rules will bring sizeable public health benefits, and that industry groups have been exaggerating the costs of environmental regulations since they were first created.

So, who’s right? This month, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which conducts policy research for members of Congress, has been circulating a paper that tries to calmly sort through the shouting match. Thanks to The Hill’s Andrew Restuccia, it’s now available (PDF) for all to read. And the upshot is that CRS is awfully skeptical of the “train wreck” predictions.. . .

The CRS report also agrees with green groups that the benefits of these new rules shouldn’t be downplayed. Those can be tricky to quantify, however. In one example, the EPA estimates that an air-transport rule to clamp down on smog-causing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide would help prevent 21,000 cases of bronchitis and 23,000 heart attacks, and save 36,000 lives. That’s, at the high end, $290 billion in health benefits, compared with $2.8 billion per year in costs (according to the EPA) by 2014. “In most cases,” CRS concludes, “the benefits are larger.”

Ray Jay wrote:This seems convincing to me ... I'm against frivolous and much government regulation, but a clean environment and general health is something that I do want, and we need regulation to get there. I'm certainly inclined to believe that we need strong regulation for mercury and coal ash. I'd like to hear the negative argument.

Two state utilities said this week new federal pollution rules will lead to higher electricity costs come January.

Wisconsin Public Service Corp. of Green Bay said its residential customers can expect an increase of more than $4 a month next year, including about $2 linked to the new rules designed to limit air pollution from coal-fired power plants.

The utility said it would see higher costs of about $32.6 million in 2012 from the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule that was finalized recently by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That will result in rates going up by 6.8% instead of 3.4%, the utility said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last month finalized stronger regulations for Wisconsin and 26 other states aimed at curbing air pollution from long-distance sources.

Environmental groups praised the new rule because it would reduce acid rain and air pollution as well as help curb health effects from dirty air linked to coal plants. The EPA projected the rule will save up to 34,000 lives a year and prevent more than 400,000 asthma attacks as well as 19,000 admissions to hospitals.

Nationwide, the EPA estimated that utilities are projected to spend $800 million on the rule in 2014, in addition to $1.6 billion a year that's been spent to satisfy an earlier version of the regulations.

But the EPA estimates the nation will see $120 billion to $280 billion in annual health and welfare benefits beginning in 2014.

The head of the Texas Public Utility Commission expressed concern Friday that a new federal air quality rule, set to take effect Jan. 1, will cause disruptions in electric service.

If implementation of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule is not delayed, "I have no doubt in my mind that this rule will result in reliability issues and rolling outages in Texas," Donna Nelson said at the start of the commission's meeting.

The rule, issued in early July by the Environmental Protection Agency, would require substantial reductions in emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide at power plants in 27 states.

The EPA says the rule will save and prolong lives by reducing harmful smog and soot pollution. Gina McCarthy, an EPA assistant administrator, said in a previous statement that power plants in the state "will be able to cut their pollution without jeopardizing reliable electricity service for Texans."

But Dallas-based power generator Luminant says it doesn't have enough time to comply and has asked that the EPA delay implementation.

The company says the industry's standard time frame for installing emission controls is several years, but the rule requires compliance in six months. So Luminant, a subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings, has said it may have to shut down some coal-fired power plants in East Texas.

"Curtailing plant and/or mine operations will be the only option" if the 1,323-page rule goes into effect as planned, Luminant said.

Faxmonkey wrote:So the plant owners complain, of course they would. Question is why do you believe them 100% ? Next question would be how toxic is the stuff they are blowing into the air ?

So the rational approach would be to go look at the pollution data and then decide wether measure are apropriate and if these specific measures are well thought out and implemented.
But i guess you can also just scream your head off when the word regulation is mentioned.

Doctor Fate wrote:

Faxmonkey wrote:So the plant owners complain, of course they would. Question is why do you believe them 100% ? Next question would be how toxic is the stuff they are blowing into the air ?

I don't have to believe them 100%. I only have to apply common sense. We have a president who said he wanted electricity rates to skyrocket and said he would put coal companies out of business. If shutting down these plants will save hundreds of billions of dollars in health costs, that should be demonstrable, yes? Where is the proof? Why doesn't the EPA prove what it is saying or do you just believe them 100%?

Doctor Fate wrote:If the stuff is so bad, why is air quality across the country so much better than it was 40 years ago?

Doctor Fate wrote:If you believe the EPA is somehow not a political arm of the Obama administration, you've not been keeping up with Lisa Jackson. She's quite the smarmy political hack.

Faxmonkey wrote:And what did i say ? I said check the data, before screaming your head off that it's only motivated by politics.

That's easy 1) better technology 2) more stringent regulation 3) loss of heavy industry . That doesn't however proof in any way that the coal power plants aren't releasing toxic pollutants, especially the older ones. New research might have shown that substances believed to be harmless in fact aren't, people might have higher expectations towards clean air or whatever.
Just because the air got cleaner doesn't mean that you should ignore potential pollutants.

Let's say i buy into the argument that the EPA is a purely political organisation, then we still have their word (gotta be sceptical because they're political hacks) vs the energy producers (gotta be sceptical, because they want to protect their profit) which leads me right back to the matter of checking the data.

I'm pretty sure it's not too hard to analyse what's coming out of the plants, measure the concentration of the bad stuff in concentric circles around the plants in question.

If it turns out it's highly toxic install filtration systems or shut the plants down, if not leave them alone. Hurray problem solved.

Ten oil rigs have left the Gulf of Mexico since the Obama Administration imposed a moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling in May 2010 and others could follow soon, a detailed July 2011 report from Sen. David Vitter’s (R-La.) office shows.

The ten rigs named in the document are: Marinas, Discover Americas, Ocean Endeavor, Ocean Confidence, Stena Forth, Clyde Bourdeaux, Ensco 8503, Deep Ocean Clarion, Discover Spirit, and Amirante. The rigs have left the Gulf for locations in Egypt, Congo, French Guiana, Liberia, Nigeria and Brazil.

It gets worse.

Several of the remaining rigs could be relocating soon, according to the report. These include the Paul Romano, the Ocean Monarch and the Saratoga. Moreover, eight other rigs that were planned for the Gulf have been detoured away, Don Briggs, President of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association (LOGA), points out.

“When you have companies that would be spending hundreds of millions of dollars, or some cases, billions of dollars, they need certainty,” Briggs explained. “We don’t have that now and I don’t expect that we will anytime soon. We will be in a deteriorating position until this changes.”

Federal and state efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed, government records show. Two years after it was awarded $186 million in federal stimulus money to weatherize drafty homes, California has spent only a little over half that sum and has so far created the equivalent of just 538 full-time jobs in the last quarter, according to the State Department of Community Services and Development.

The weatherization program was initially delayed for seven months while the federal Department of Labor determined prevailing wage standards for the industry. Even after that issue was resolved, the program never really caught on as homeowners balked at the upfront costs.

“Companies and public policy officials really overestimated how much consumers care about energy efficiency,” said Sheeraz Haji, chief executive of the Cleantech Group, a market research firm. “People care about their wallet and the comfort of their home, but it’s not a sexy thing.”

Job training programs intended for the clean economy have also failed to generate big numbers. The Economic Development Department in California reports that $59 million in state, federal and private money dedicated to green jobs training and apprenticeship has led to only 719 job placements — the equivalent of an $82,000 subsidy for each one.

“The demand’s just not there to take this to scale,” said Fred Lucero, project manager at Richmond BUILD, which teaches students the basics of carpentry and electrical work in addition to specifically “green” trades like solar installation.

Richmond BUILD has found jobs for 159 of the 221 students who have entered its clean-energy program — but only 35 graduates are employed with solar and energy efficiency companies, with the balance doing more traditional building trades work. Mr. Lucero said he considered each placement a success because his primary mission was to steer residents of the city’s most violent neighborhoods away from a life of crime.

At Asian Neighborhood Design, a 38-year old nonprofit in the South of Market neighborhood of San Francisco, training programs for green construction jobs have remained small because the number of available jobs is small. The group accepted just 16 of 200 applicants for the most recent 14-week cycle, making it harder to get into than the University of California. The group’s training director, Jamie Brewster, said he was able to find jobs for 10 trainees within two weeks of their completing the program.

Mr. Brewster said huge job losses in construction had made it nearly impossible to place large numbers of young people in the trades. Because green construction is a large component of the green economy, the moribund housing market and associated weakness in all types of building are clearly important factors in explaining the weak creation of green jobs.

Advocates and entrepreneurs also blame Washington for the slow growth. Mr. Jones cited the failure of so-called cap and trade legislation, which would have cut carbon pollution and increased the cost of using fossil fuel, making alternative energy more competitive. Congressional Republicans have staunchly opposed cap-and-trade.

Mr. Haji of the Cleantech Group agrees. “Having a market mechanism that helps drive these new technologies would have made a significant difference,” he said. “Without that, the industry muddles along.”

The fact that some "potential" pollutants may be released does not mean there is necessarily a significant health risk.Said risk should be easily demonstrable, right? People have lived in those "concentric circles" for decades around those plants. Are they dying early? From what? Where are the class-action lawsuits? The medical studies?

The EPA claims we will save up to $280 billion in health costs, yes BILLION, in 2014 as a result of their actions. You say I should just accept it. I say it's "dubious science."
The onus is not on me to disprove the claim. Its outrageous nature demands it be proven. Go ahead

The regulations, they say, will cost utilities up to $129 billion and force them to retire one-fifth of coal capacity.

An acute episode of pneumonia or a motor vehicle accident might lead to an expensive hospitalization for an otherwise healthy person, who might be in the top 1 percent for just that year but have few expenses in subsequent years. Similarly, many people have chronic conditions, such as diabetes and asthma, which are fairly expensive to treat on an ongoing basis for the rest of their lives, but in most years will not put them at the very top of health care spenders. However, each year some of those with chronic conditions will have acute episodes or complications requiring a hospitalization or other more expensive treatment.