Coal industry supporters are organizing around a multipronged delay strategy to thwart the implementation of carbon pollution standards.
While some plan to file federal lawsuits — two such attempts have been dismissed by courts ruling that a law can’t be challenged until it has been published in the Federal Register — much of the fight in Pennsylvania will be waged at the state and regional level, promised John Pippy, CEO of the Pennsylvania Coal Alliance.
“The push right now is not necessarily getting the stay from the courts as slowing down our state regulators and making sure [we know] what rules we’ll have to abide by before we play ball,” Mr. Pippy said during the Platts Coal Marketing Days conference Downtown last week.
The Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s answer to carbon dioxide’s contribution to global warming, sets emission reduction targets for states, but allows them to assemble their own menu of strategies to meet those targets.
States are required to submit their plans to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency next September — a deadline that state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Quigley said will be met — but Mr. Pippy wants Pennsylvania regulators to take advantage of a two-year extension allowed under the rule.
The extra time should be used to assess the rule’s impact on the electricity grid, Pennsylvania’s economy and consumer prices, he said. But it will also give time for the legal challenges to do their work of delaying and/or modifying the rule.
“It’s going be a political fight. It’s going to be a regulatory fight. It’s going to be a legal battle,” he told a crowd of coal industry producers and power plant operators.
The shadow of the federal Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) loomed large over the discussion. The 2012 rule, which aimed to reduce certain air pollutants emitted from coal-fired power plants, was invalidated in June. A federal court found that the EPA did not properly consider the economic cost of the rule but the reversal came two months after the compliance deadline. By that time, power plants either made sure they complied or retired.
“The silver lining in the MATS cloud is that MATS has provided ample evidence of irreparable harm,” said Emily Medine, principal with the Virginia-based Energy Ventures Analysis, Inc.
That should give courts a framework for evaluating claims that the Clean Power Plan will do the same.
“The most important battle here is the battle for the stay,” Ms. Medine said. “The stay will say the timetable for compliance will be suspended until a legal decision is finally reached.”
Hours before Mr. Pippy was scheduled to ask the DEP to hold off on the state plan during a listening session on the topic at Carnegie Mellon University, Mr. Quigley said Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration is committed to finalizing its strategy next September.
First Published: September 22, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
