EPA chief hints interim CO2 goals likely intact

OREANDA-NEWS. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Gina McCarthy today signaled that the agency is likely to retain interim targets, but possibly with some revisions, in the final version of regulations for CO2 emissions from existing power plants.

While promising to give states as much flexibility as possible, McCarthy said EPA would not necessarily waver on including the contentious interim targets, which would assign each state an average emissions rate reduction to be satisfied from 2020-29 before hitting the final targets in 2030.

"Part of the challenge is this concern for how quickly out of the gate we are expecting the energy world to hit the interim goals as we have defined them," McCarthy said during an event at the University of Chicago. "But the interim goal is essential."

The interim targets have been criticized by a number of states and utilities because they would require emissions rate cuts starting just four years after states submit compliance plans to EPA. They have asked EPA to eliminate the interim targets, warning of a "cliff" instead of a steady "glide path" to compliance.

While McCarthy said the final rule is likely to retain interim goals, she suggested that EPA may be looking at ways to revise them to prevent a rush to build natural gas-fired generation to lower CO2 emissions at the expense of renewables.

"Some states say the cliff is too steep moving forward, and if the cliff is too steep, you are looking at a huge transition to natural gas, and renewables could be left behind," McCarthy said. "We designed the interim rule believing that states were ready to make some investments, and states have the flexibility to do that."

McCarthy said she wants to give states a great deal of flexibility in the final rule this summer while "sending longer-term market signals" to reduce the carbon intensity of the generation fleet..

Beyond flexibility, McCarthy suggested that segments of the power industry are already operating under the belief the regulations will take effect.

"I do not see any utility thinking we are not going to do it," she said. "It is is going to happen, and we have the legal right and authority to do it."