Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Legislation and Policy, USA



A year ago, President Obama put the electricity industry on notice and said that he would implement some sort of limits on carbon emissions. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a proposed rule for cleaner electricity generating plants and it would go a long way towards making the "long tailpipe" of electric vehicles even cleaner.

Officially called, "Carbon pollution emission guidelines for existing stationary sources: electric utility generating units" (and "Clean Power Plan" for short), the proposed rule basically tells the 50 states to come up with their own ways to reduce CO2 emissions. If it all works as planned, the changes will cut power sector carbon emission by 30 percent nationwide by 2030 (compared to the 2005 levels). This will prevent "up to 6,600 premature deaths" and offer "up to $93 billion in climate and public health benefits" all while cutting electricity bills by "roughly 8 percent." Those are the EPA's prediction, anyway. There is no mention of plug-in vehicles in the 645-page proposal (get the PDF here), but if you're making the electric grid cleaner, then EVs get cleaner as well.
Senior EPA officials said the proposal contains "sensible and reasonable" things that can be done to clean up the air and that "we have a number of years to come to an agreement." Those years might be required because Republicans and some Democrats have already signaled their displeasure with the rules and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) quickly released a statement saying that, "If these rules are allowed to go into effect, the administration for all intents and purposes is creating America's next energy crisis."

There are supporters of the proposed rules, too. The president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, Ken Kimmell, said in a statement that, "a significant opportunity for states to make meaningful reductions in their emissions." We've got the full statement from the UCS as well as more from the ACCCE, the Rainforest Action Network and Tom Steyer below. There will be a 120-day comment period full of public hearings once the proposed rule is published in the federal register, so expect to hear more about this in the future.Continue reading EPA proposes new rules to make US power plants 30 percent cleaner by 2030

EPA proposes new rules to make US power plants 30 percent cleaner by 2030 originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Mon, 02 Jun 2014 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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