When it comes to policymaking in the energy arena, few decisions are going to make everyone happy, especially when the issue is controversial. Clean air is no exception, and the Obama administration waded into a policy knot when it took on the problem of power-plant emissions.


In early August, President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced their much anticipated Clean Power Plan. More than two years in the making, it reflects what the EPA describes as “unprecedented public input,” including millions of public comments and hundreds of meetings with stakeholders. Recognizing the complexity and sensitivity of the task, the plan sets ambitious, yet clearly defined goals that the EPA describes as flexible and fair.


Specifically, the plan sets a national standard for carbon-pollution reduction by establishing emission performance rates for fossil fuel and natural-gas fired power plants. States are required to implement those standards and are given the choice of three rate forms. Choices include a rate-based state goal measured in pounds per megawatt-hour and two mass-based state goals measured in total short tons of CO2. States can choose the formula that best suits them, based on their own mix of power-plant facilities and technology, then develop and implement their own plan to reach the federal targets.


In developing the plan, the EPA relied on the so-called best system of emissions reduction (BSER) that has been demonstrated for a particular pollutant and a particular group of sources by examining technologies and measures already in use. The BSER consists of three building blocks: Reducing the carbon intensity of existing coal-fired power plants; substituting natural gas generation for coal-fired generation; and substituting renewable generation for coal-fired generation.


The plan is expected to reduce carbon emissions from plants by 870 million tons or 35 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.


With the first-ever national standard to address carbon emissions from power plants, controversy should come as no surprise. Opponents—including industry representatives, state officials and Republican lawmakers—have cried foul, and some have been planning legal attacks since before the plan was finalized. Meanwhile, some clean-air advocates complained that the administration did not go far enough, or worse, that it sold out to power companies. 


EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy is unapologetic. In speeches leading up to the plan’s release, she referred to the “moral obligation to ensure the world we leave behind is as safe, healthy and vibrant as the one we inherited.” She has also stated that the plan “is a down payment on a more efficient 21st century power system that cuts energy waste, cuts pollution and cuts costs.”


States will be required to submit their final plans by Sept. 6, 2016.