SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro unveiled a plan Wednesday to fight climate change, saying he will back legislation to make power plant owners in the nation’s third-biggest energy-producing state pay for their greenhouse gas emissions and require utilities to buy more electricity from renewable sources.

Such legislation would make Pennsylvania the first major fossil fuel-producing state to adopt a carbon-pricing program. But it is drawing fierce opposition from business interests wary of paying more for power and will face long odds in a Legislature protective of the state’s natural gas industry.

Shapiro’s proposal comes as environmentalists are pressuring him to do more to fight climate change in the nation’s No. 2 gas-producing state and as the state’s highest court considers a challenge to his predecessor’s plan to adopt a carbon-pricing program. It also comes after many of the state’s biggest power polluters, coal-fired plants, have shut down or converted to gas.

At a news conference in Scranton, nicknamed the “Electric City,” Shapiro said his plan will make Pennsylvania competitive in a clean energy economy, improve electricity reliability, cut greenhouse gas emissions and lower electricity bills.

It is long past time for lawmakers to act, he said.

“If they choose to do nothing, they’re choosing to be less competitive in an environment that demands us to bring excellence to the table every single day,” Shapiro said. “They’re choosing to fall behind if they choose to do nothing.”

Under Shapiro’s plan, Pennsylvania would create its own standalone carbon-pricing program, with most of the money paid by polluting power plants — 70% — going to lower consumer electric bills. No one will pay more for electricity and many will pay less, Shapiro said.

Meanwhile, utilities would be required to buy 50% of their electricity from sources that are mostly carbon-free by 2035, up from the state’s current requirement of 18%.

Currently, about 60% of the state’s electricity comes from natural gas-fired power plants, and the 50% renewables requirement could hurt demand for electricity from those plants. Another third of Pennsylvania’s electricity is from nuclear plants — which are not included in the 50% renewables requirement — and the rest from coal and renewables.

Republicans who control the state Senate have pushed to open greater opportunities for natural gas production in Pennsylvania, and have warned that carbon-pricing could raise electricity bills, fray the electricity grid, hurt in-state energy producers and drive new power generation to other states.

“Families are feeling the strain of inflation and increased household expenses, which must be a chief concern when implementing any changes to energy policy,” Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Indiana, said in a statement Wednesday.

Shapiro’s administration did not provide many details of his strategy Wednesday, including how much it would reduce greenhouse gases, how much money power plants would pay or how it would affect the average household electric bill.

Patrick Cicero, Pennsylvania’s consumer advocate, said the amount of savings on electric bills will depend on usage — large industrial customers would see more and low-income households would get “significant reductions” because of a planned expansion of the state’s energy-assistance program.

For the average household, “it’s not going to be much,” Cicero said, “but it’s not costing households more. That’s a win-win.”

Neighboring Maryland, New Jersey and New York have set requirements to draw 50% or more of their electricity from renewables by 2030, prompting warnings that Pennsylvania risks falling behind in a clean energy economy.

Robert Bair, president of the Pennsylvania State Building and Construction Trades, whose members work on power plants, refineries and pipelines, said Pennsylvania energy policy must protect workers in the coal and gas industries. But he also said Pennsylvania will lose clean energy jobs to other states if it does nothing.

Heavy energy users and coal-industry businesses slammed Shapiro’s “energy tax” as posing a damaging blow to industries and a fatal blow to the state’s few remaining coal-fired power plants.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition, which represents Pennsylvania’s enormous natural gas industry, was more circumspect. The most pressing challenge is ensuring the electric grid is stable and reliable, said Dave Callahan, the group’s president.

Despite the lack of details, Shapiro’s plan drew statements of support from renewable energy trade associations and environmental advocates.

“Even what the governor has proposed is not enough to meet the needs of addressing the climate crisis, but it’s a huge step forward from where Pennsylvania is now,” said Alex Bomstein, executive director of the Clean Air Council.

Meanwhile, environmental advocates worry about abandoning the plan produced by Shapiro’s predecessor, former Gov. Tom Wolf.

For the time being, a state court has blocked Wolf’s regulation that authorizes Pennsylvania to join the multistate Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which imposes a price and declining cap on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

As a candidate for governor, Shapiro had distanced himself from Wolf’s plan — although critics said Shapiro’s plan is similar — and Shapiro wouldn’t say Wednesday whether he’d enforce Pennsylvania’s participation in the regional consortium should the courts uphold it and the Legislature do nothing.

“I’m focused on getting these things passed,” Shapiro said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new Biden administration rule that sets tougher standards for deadly soot pollution faced a barrage of legal challenges March 6, as 25 Republican-led states and a host of business groups filed lawsuits seeking to block the rule in court.

Twenty-four states, led by attorneys general from Kentucky and West Virginia, filed a joint challenge stating that new Environmental Protection Agency rule would raise costs for manufacturers, utilities and families and could block new manufacturing plants and infrastructure such as roads and bridges. Texas filed a separate suit, as did business groups led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers.

“The EPA’s new rule has more to do with advancing President (Joe) Biden’s radical green agenda than protecting Kentuckians’ health or the environment, said Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, who is leading the joint lawsuit along with West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.

The EPA rule “will drive jobs and investment out of Kentucky and overseas, leaving employers and hardworking families to pay the price,” Coleman said.

The soot rule is one of several EPA dictates under attack from industry groups and Republican-led states. The Supreme Court heard arguments last month on a GOP challenge to the agency’s “good neighbor rule,” which restricts smokestack emissions from power plants and other industrial sources that burden downwind areas.

Three energy-producing states — Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia — challenged the rule, along with the steel industry and other groups, calling it costly and ineffective. The rule is on hold in a dozen states because of the court challenges.

In opposing the soot rule, Republicans and industry groups say the United States already has some of the strictest air quality standards in the world — tougher than the European Union or major polluters such as China and India.

Tightening U.S. standards “wouldn’t improve public health, but it would put as many as 30% of all U.S. counties out of compliance under federal law, leading to aggressive new permitting requirements that could effectively block new economic activity,” Coleman said.

The EPA rule sets maximum levels of fine particle pollution — more commonly known as soot — at 9 micrograms per cubic meter of air, down from 12 micrograms established a decade ago under the Obama administration.

Environmental and public health groups hailed the rule as a major step to improve the health of Americans, including future generations. EPA scientists have estimated exposure at previous limits contributed to thousands of early deaths from heart disease and lung cancer, along with other health problems.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the new soot rule, finalized last month, would create $46 billion in net health benefits by 2032, including prevention of up to 800,000 asthma attacks and 4,500 premature deaths. The rule will especially benefit children, older adults and those with heart and lung conditions, Regan said, as well as people in low-income and minority communities adversely affected by decades of industrial pollution.

“We do not have to sacrifice people to have a prosperous and booming economy,” Regan said.
Biden is seeking reelection, and some fellow Democrats have warned that a tough new soot standard could harm his chances in key industrial states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The EPA and White House officials brushed aside those concerns, saying the industry has developed technical improvements to meet previous soot standards and can adapt to meet the new ones. Soot pollution has declined by 42% since 2000, even as the U.S. gross domestic product has increased by 52%, Regan said.

The new rule does not impose pollution controls on specific industries. Instead, it lowers the annual standard for fine particulate matter for overall air quality. The EPA will use air sampling to identify counties and other areas that do not meet the new standard. States would then have 18 months to develop compliance plans for those areas. States that do not meet the new standard by 2032 could face penalties, although EPA said it expects that 99% of U.S. counties will be able to meet the revised annual standard by 2032.

Industry groups and Republican officials dispute that and say a lower soot limit could put hundreds of U.S. counties out of compliance.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned the White House in January that 43% of total particulate emissions come from wildfires, and called the pollution standard “the wrong tool to address this problem.”

The EPA said it will work with states, counties and tribes to account for and respond to wildfires, an increasing source of soot pollution, especially in the West, where climate change has led to longer wildfire seasons, with more frequent and intense fires. The agency allows states and air agencies to request exemptions from air-quality standards due to “exceptional events,” including wildfires and prescribed fires.

Besides Kentucky, West Virginia and Texas, other states challenging the EPA rule include: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

All three cases were filed before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday it is delaying planned rules to curb emissions from existing natural gas plants that release harmful air pollutants and contribute to global warming.

The agency said it is still on track to finalize rules for coal-fired power plants and new gas plants that have not come online, a key step to slow planet-warming pollution from the power sector, the nation’s second-largest contributor to climate change.

But in a turnaround from previous plans, the agency said it will review standards for existing gas plants and expand the rules to include more pollutants. The change came after complaints from environmental justice groups, who said the earlier plan allowed too much toxic air pollution which disproportionately harms low-income neighborhoods near power plants, refineries and other industrial sites.

“As EPA works towards final standards to cut climate pollution from existing coal and new gas-fired power plants later this spring, the agency is taking a new, comprehensive approach to cover the entire fleet of natural gas-fired turbines, as well as cover more pollutants,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.

He called the new plan a “stronger, more durable approach” that will achieve greater emissions reductions than the current proposal. It also will better protect vulnerable frontline communities suffering from toxic air pollution caused by power plants and other industrial sites, Regan said.

Still, the plan was not universally welcomed by environmentalists, who said the new approach will likely push rules for existing gas plants past the November presidential election.

“We are extremely disappointed in EPA’s decision to delay finalizing carbon pollution standards for existing gas plants, which make up a significant portion of carbon emissions in the power sector,” said Frank Sturges, a lawyer for the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental group.

“Greenhouse gas emissions from power plants have gone uncontrolled for far too long, and we have no more time to waste,” he said.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, called EPA’s decision “inexplicable,” adding: “Making a rule that applies only to coal, which is dying out on its own, and to new gas power plants that are not yet built, is not how we are going to reach climate safety.”

But some environmentalists hailed the decision, saying the new plan would ultimately deliver better results.

“We have always known that the fight for a clean power sector wouldn’t be a quick one,” said Charles Harper of Evergreen Action. “EPA’s first order of business should be finalizing strong and necessary limits on climate pollution from new gas and existing coal plants as quickly as possible.”

“We are glad that EPA is committed to finishing the job with a new rule that covers every gas plant operating in the U.S.,” Harper added.

“Tackling dirty coal plants is one of the single most important moves the president and EPA can make to rein in climate pollution,” said Abigail Dillen, president of Earthjustice. “As utilities propose new fossil gas plants, we absolutely have to get ahead of a big new pollution problem.”

EPA issued a proposed rule in May 2023 that called for drastically curbing greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal and gas-fired plants, as well as future gas plants planned by the power industry. No new coal plant has opened in the U.S. in more than a decade, while dozens of coal-fired plants have closed in recent years in the face of competition from cheaper natural gas. The Biden administration has committed to create a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035.

The EPA proposal could force power plants to capture smokestack emissions using a technology that has long been promised but is not used widely in the United States.

If finalized, the proposed regulation would mark the first time the federal government has restricted carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants, which generate about 25% of U.S. greenhouse gas pollution, second only to the transportation sector. The rule also would apply to future electric plants and would avoid up to 617 million metric tons of carbon dioxide through 2042, equivalent to annual emissions of 137 million passenger vehicles, the EPA said.

Almost all coal plants — along with large, frequently used gas-fired plants — would have to cut or capture nearly all their carbon dioxide emissions by 2038, the EPA said. Plants that cannot meet the new standards would be forced to shutter.

Much of the EPA plan is expected to be made final this spring and is likely to be challenged by industry groups and Republican-leaning states. They have accused the Democratic administration of overreach on environmental regulations and warn of a pending reliability crisis for the electric grid. The power plant rule is one of at least a half-dozen EPA rules limiting power plant emissions and wastewater treatment.

The National Mining Association warned of “an onslaught” of government regulation “designed to shut down the coal fleet prematurely″ when the EPA proposal was announced last year.

Regan has denied that the power plant rule is aimed at shutting down the coal sector, but acknowledged last year that, “ we will see some coal retirements.”

Coal provided just over 16% of U.S. electricity in 2023, down from about 45% in 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Natural gas provided about 43% of U.S. electricity. The remainder comes from nuclear energy and renewables such as wind, solar and hydropower.

Peggy Shepard, co-founder and executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, a New York-based group, said she was pleased that the concerns of environmental justice communities will be factored into EPA’s rulemaking.

“The power sector is one of the top sources of carbon emissions and pollution,” she said. “With this pause to take a deeper dive into developing the most comprehensive and thoughtful rulemaking for existing gas plants, we have an opportunity to do this work correctly and effectively to protect the human and environmental health of the most overburdened, neglected and vulnerable people across the country.”

The EPA’s revised plan was first reported by Bloomberg News.

The testing took place this week at ESG’s 4 MW power generation site in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Using calibrated humidity sensors positioned at both the beginning and the end of the exhaust stream, ESG says the results exceeded the modeled forecast of 83% that was developed during the initial design phase of its carbon capture process.

“This will work to our benefit as we scale to meet the demands of fossil fuel consumption in small and large power facilities, and eventually the transportation industry,” said Nick Scuderi, president of ESG Clean Energy.

ESG has plans to build a second gas-fired plant in Holyoke. The 4.2 MW plant would also be powered by Caterpillar engines.

ESG Clean Energy says it plans on implementing its CO2 capture technology across all its planned facilities and has licensed the technology to a subsidiary of Camber Energy for all of Canada and multiple locations in the United States.

The company says its system treats the exhaust stream to remove the water vapor before it is treated for capturing CO2. The system consists of a ceramic membrane that has been incorporated into a mechanical cooling system.

There’s a problem with traditional carbon capture, ESG Clean Energy says: separting and capturing carbon dioxide from a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and water vapor can be difficult, and while some materials have been developed that can “selectively attach or react with the CO2 while letting the other gases pass by,” the water vapor remains. Water molecules interfere with the carbon capture process, ESG Clean Energy says, citing several scientific studies showing how water negatively affects CO2 capture.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed skeptical Wednesday as the Environmental Protection Agency sought to continue enforcing an anti-air pollution rule in 11 states while separate legal challenges proceed around the country.

The EPA’s “good neighbor” rule is intended to restrict smokestack emissions from power plants and other industrial sources that burden downwind areas with smog-causing pollution.

Three energy-producing states — Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia — challenged the rule, along with the steel industry and other groups, calling it costly and ineffective. The rule is on hold in a dozen states because of the court challenges.

The Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, has increasingly reined in the powers of federal agencies, including the EPA, in recent years. The justices have restricted EPA’s authority to fight air and water pollution — including a landmark 2022 ruling that limited EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants that contribute to global warming. The court also shot down a vaccine mandate and blocked President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program.

The court is currently weighing whether to overturn its 40-year-old Chevron decision, which has been the basis for upholding a wide range of regulations on public health, workplace safety and consumer protections.

A lawyer for the EPA said the “good neighbor” rule was important to protect downwind states that receive unwanted air pollution from other states. Besides the potential health impacts, the states face their own federal deadlines to ensure clean air, said Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart, representing the EPA.

States such as Wisconsin, New York and Connecticut can struggle to meet federal standards and reduce harmful levels of ozone because of pollution from power plants, cement kilns and natural gas pipelines that drift across their borders.

Judith Vale, New York’s deputy solicitor general, said as much as 65% of some states’ smog pollution comes from out of state.

The EPA plan was intended to provide a national solution to the problem of ozone pollution, but challengers said it relied on the assumption that all 23 states targeted by the rule would participate.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh seemed sympathetic to that argument, saying the EPA plan could impose unreasonable costs on states that remain under its authority, because it was initially designed for 23 states.

“EPA came back and said, ‘Even if we have fewer states, we’re going to plow ahead anyway,”’ Kavanaugh said. “Let’s just kind of pretend nothing happened and just go ahead with the 11 states.”

The EPA proceeded “without a whole lot of explanation, and nobody got a chance to comment on that” as part of the rule-making process, added Justice Neil Gorsuch.

“What (states) are asking for is simply an opportunity to make the argument before the agency,” said Chief Justice John Roberts.

Stewart responded that requirements for states to control air pollution don’t change based on the number of states subject to the rule. “The requirements are exactly the same,” he said.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned why the Supreme Court was hearing the case before the other legal challenges were completed. A lawyer for industry groups challenging the rule said it imposes significant and immediate costs that could affect the reliability of the electric grid.

“There are hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, in costs over the next 12 to 18 months,” with only a small reduction in air pollution and no guarantee the final rule will be upheld, said industry lawyer Catherine Stetson. “There are over-control issues here,” she said.

The EPA has said power-plant emissions dropped by 18% in 2023 in the 10 states where it has been allowed to enforce its rule, which was finalized last March. Those states are Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. In California, limits on emissions from industrial sources other than power plants are supposed to take effect in 2026.

The rule is on hold in another dozen states because of separate legal challenges. The states are Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.

States that contribute to ground-level ozone, or smog, are required to submit plans ensuring that coal-fired power plants and other industrial sites don’t add significantly to air pollution in other states. In cases where a state has not submitted a “good neighbor” plan — or where EPA disapproves a state plan — the federal plan was supposed to ensure that downwind states are protected.

Ground-level ozone, which forms when industrial pollutants chemically react in the presence of sunlight, can cause respiratory problems, including asthma and chronic bronchitis. People with compromised immune systems, the elderly and children playing outdoors are particularly vulnerable.

Environmental and public health advocates have praised the EPA plan as a life-saving measure for people who live hundreds of miles away from power plants, cement factories, steel mills and other industrial polluters.

Industry groups criticize it as having an anti-coal bias that would drive up the cost of electricity.

The research project and new carbon capture system – developed in partnership with the University of Kentucky and others – will be hosted at PPL subsidiaries Louisville Gas and Electric Company’s (LG&E) and Kentucky Utilities Company’s (KU) Cane Run 7 natural gas combined-cycle generating station in Louisville, Kentucky.

The new 20 MW research system planned for Cane Run is designed to capture a portion of the CO2 from the natural gas plant’s flue gas using a heat-integrated CO2 capture technology. The goal is to capture up to 240 tons of CO2 per day and up to 90,000 metric tons of CO2 per year. Current plans include a nearby manufacturer reusing and purifying the captured CO2.

In addition to the University of Kentucky, collaborators on the project include EPRI; Kentucky State University; Visage Energy; and American Welding & Gas. Vogt Power International Inc., a Babcock Power Inc. subsidiary, and Siemens Energy, manufacturers of the Cane Run 7 Generating Station, which are contributing technical support as part of the project team on integrating the new CO2 capture system. Koch Modular Process Systems and others will support the design, fabrication and construction of the carbon capture unit.

PPL subsidiaries LG&E and KU have partnered with the University of Kentucky for nearly two decades on various carbon capture research projects and were founders of the university’s carbon capture research program in 2006. Together with EPRI, the company and university deployed a pilot-scale carbon capture facility in 2014 at the KU E.W. Brown Generating Station.

The latest research initiative at Cane Run is one of more than 150 research and development projects that PPL is currently collaborating on with over 30 industry and academic partners, it said. Project goals range from accelerating low-carbon energy technologies to strengthening network resiliency.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is setting tougher standards for deadly soot pollution, saying that reducing fine particle matter from tailpipes, smokestacks and other industrial sources could prevent thousands of premature deaths a year.

Environmental and public health groups hailed the new Environmental Protection Agency rule finalized Feb. 7 as a major step in improving the health of Americans, including future generations. Industry groups warned it could lead to the loss of manufacturing jobs and even shut down power plants or refineries. Business groups and Republican-leaning states are likely to challenge the rule in court.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the rule would have $46 billion in net health benefits by 2032, including prevention of up to 800,000 asthma attacks and 4,500 premature deaths. He said the rule will especially benefit children, older adults and those with heart and lung conditions, as well as people in low-income and minority communities adversely affected by decades of industrial pollution.

The rule “really does represent what the Biden-Harris administration is all about, which is understanding that healthy people equal a healthy economy,” he told reporters Feb. 6. “We do not have to sacrifice people to have a prosperous and booming economy.”

The rule sets maximum levels of 9 micrograms of fine particle pollution per cubic meter of air, down from 12 micrograms established a decade ago under the Obama administration.

The rule sets an air quality level that states and counties must achieve in the coming years to reduce pollution from power plants, vehicles, industrial sites and wildfires. The rule comes as Democratic President Joe Biden seeks reelection, and some Democrats have warned that a tough soot standard could harm his chances in key industrial states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Administration officials brushed aside those concerns, saying the industry has used technical improvements to meet previous soot standards and can adapt to meet the new standard as well. Soot pollution has declined by 42% since 2000, even as the U.S. gross domestic product has increased by 52%, Regan said.

“So we’ve heard this argument before, but the facts are well-established that these standards really will increase the quality of life for so many people, especially those who are disproportionately impacted,” he said.

Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, said the EPA was “putting public health first by requiring polluters to cut soot from the air we all breathe.”
Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club, said that opponents’ “resistance is a stark reminder that the fight for clean air and a healthier future is far from over.”

The new rule does not impose pollution controls on specific industries; instead, it lowers the annual standard for fine particulate matter for overall air quality. The EPA will use air sampling to identify counties and other areas that do not meet the new standard. States would then have 18 months to develop compliance plans for those areas. States that do not meet the new standard by 2032 could face penalties, although EPA said it expects that 99% of U.S. counties will be able to meet the revised annual standard by 2032.

Industry groups and Republican officials dispute that and say a limit of 9 micrograms per cubic meter could sharply increase the number of U.S. counties in violation of the soot standard. Companies in those places would have difficulty obtaining permits to build or expand industrial plants.

The American Forest and Paper Association called the new rule “unworkable” and said it undermines Biden’s promise to increase manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

“We are very concerned that many of the modernization projects in the paper and wood products industry and across U.S. manufacturing will no longer be able to move forward,” said Heidi Brock, the group’s president and CEO.

The paper lobby was among 71 industry groups that warned the White House in a letter that a lower soot standard could force companies to locate new facilities in foreign countries with weaker air-quality standards, thereby undermining Biden’s economic and environmental goals.

The standard for particle pollution, more commonly known as soot, was set in late 2012 under Democratic President Barack Obama and left unchanged by Republican President Donald Trump, who overrode a scientific recommendation for a lower standard in his final days in office.

EPA scientists have estimated exposure at current limits causes the early deaths of thousands of Americans annually from heart disease and lung cancer, along with other health problems.

The new EPA rule would require states, counties and tribal governments to meet a stricter air quality standard for fine particulate matter up to 2.5 microns in diameter — far smaller than the diameter of a human hair. The standard would not force polluters to shut down, but the EPA and state regulators could use it as the basis for other rules that target pollution from specific sources such as diesel-fueled trucks, refineries and power plants.

EPA said it will work with states, counties and tribes to account for and respond to wildfires, an increasing source of soot pollution, especially in the West. “EPA recognizes the increasing challenges and human health impacts that wildland fire and smoke pose in communities all around the country,” the agency said in a fact sheet.

EPA allows states and air agencies to request exemptions from air-quality standards due to “exceptional events,” including wildfires and prescribed fires.

A 2023 report by the American Lung Association found that nearly 64 million Americans live in counties that experience unhealthy daily spikes in soot pollution and nearly 19 million live in counties that exceed annual limits for soot pollution. Most of those counties were in 11 Western states, the report said. People of color were 61% more likely than white people to live in a county with unhealthy air quality, the report said.

Bakersfield, California, tied with Visalia in the state’s San Joaquin Valley as the most polluted city for year-round particle pollution. Six of the 10 cities with the most soot pollution were in California, and two more were in the West: Medford, Oregon and greater Phoenix.

The Senate has approved President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency’s air pollution office just as the agency is set to finalize rules over climate-changing emissions from power plants and cars and trucks.

Joe Goffman is a longtime EPA official who has headed the air and radiation office on an acting basis since Biden took office three years ago. His nomination for the permanent post languished for nearly two years amid opposition from Republicans unhappy with EPA rules on a range of issues, from restrictions on coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to industrial soot and vehicle emissions.

Goffman’s 2022 nomination for the air post, one of the top jobs at EPA, lapsed last year without a Senate vote. He was renominated in early 2023. The vote to confirm him was 50-49, with West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, an ally of the coal industry, the lone Democrat to oppose him. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, a vocal Goffman critic, was absent following the death of his wife, Bobbi, last week.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said Goffman has played a central role in developing and executing rules and policies that deliver on Biden’s agenda to address the climate crisis and ensure clean air.

“Joe is uniquely skilled at building consensus among stakeholders and crafting policies that tackle global challenges like climate change, while at the same time addressing longstanding pollution concerns in overburdened communities,” Regan said in a statement.

Goffman’s office has overseen proposals that would impose strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other industries, as well as tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks and a separate rule addressing fine particulate matter, better known as soot. Those rules are set to become final later this year.

Sen. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat who chairs the Senate Environment Committee, hailed Goffman’s confirmation. The air office “has an outsized impact on our lives,” Carper said, with a mission that “includes reducing climate pollution while also improving our vehicle emissions standards and protecting public health.”

Goffman “has proven that he’s up to the task,” Carper added. ”Under his direction, EPA has made significant progress … to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help lower energy costs for all Americans.”

But Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, the top Republican on the environment panel, slammed Goffman as a key author of job-killing regulations over two Democratic administrations. Goffman was a high-ranking EPA official in the Obama administration and played a leading role in the Clean Power Plan, President Barack Obama’s signature attempt to address climate change. The 2015 rule was blocked by the Supreme Court and was never enforced.

“Rarely do we have such a robust record to draw on in evaluating a nominee — and I say this with great disappointment — rarely is the record so damaging,” Capito said in a speech on the Senate floor.

“Mr. Goffman’s actions — marked by federal overreach and job-killing regulations — have been a disaster for our country,” Capito said. She called the Clean Power Plan “a direct shot at American energy production” and an attempt to shut down coal- and gas-fired power plants, including those in her home state.

An EPA plan to curb greenhouse gas emissions from power plants is little more than the “second iteration of the Clean Power Plan,” Capito said.

“Many of us have warned about the lawlessness and danger of this regulatory plan,” she said, predicting “disastrous consequences” on the reliability of the electric grid and energy prices.

Capito and other Republicans also denounced Goffman’s role in what they called the Biden administration’s rapid push toward electric vehicles.

Environmental groups defended Goffman.

“Our nation needs Joe’s extensive experience, knowledge and hard work as we tackle the increasingly urgent problems of the climate crisis and the air pollution that makes people sick,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. Goffman once worked for the group in a long career that also includes service as a Democratic staff lawyer on the Senate environment panel.

“Joe has dedicated his career to protecting human health and the environment” and will continue to do so “through decisions anchored in science and the law,” Krupp said.

2023’s Release of New Regulations was the first Mega Session held at POWERGEN. Regulations highlighted in the 90-minute panel included New Source Performance Standards, the Good Neighbor Rule, Effluent Limitation Guidelines, Coal Combustion Residuals and others.

But a majority of the time was spent talking about proposed carbon emission standards for coal-fired plants and new and existing natural gas-fired plants. The technology-based standards, proposed by EPA in May 2023, lean on hydrogen co-firing and carbon capture and sequestration (CCUS) as strategies for decarbonizing these plants.

Nick Hutson, Energy Strategies Group Lead at EPA and one of the Mega Session panelists, said the agency has heard from various groups and stakeholders during the comment period leading up to the final rule being issued.

The comment period ended December 20, with a finalized rule expected in the Spring.

As we’ve reported, the power industry is fractured over EPA’s proposal. Some utility trade groups say the proposal should not be finalized, while others say improvements are needed. Still other utilities have thrown their support behind it. Opposition to the rule often comes with concerns that its implementation would jeopardize reliability.

While emissions reduction is EPA’s primary objective, Hutson said the agency always wants to “make sure that we’re not adding to the problem unnecessarily.”

“We always do modeling to evaluate what is the projected outcome of our policies,” he said.

As the rule is currently proposed, any coal-fired power plant intending to operate past 2040 would have to install a CCS system that captures 90% of its CO2 emissions by 2030. Any large, frequently operating natural gas-fired power plant would have to either install a 90% capture CCS system by 2035 or operate nearly entirely on clean hydrogen by 2038.

Generators that can’t meet the new standards would be forced to retire.

Jordan Flanagan spoke on the panel representing the Institute of Clean Air Companies (ICAC), a trade association representing technology, equipment and service providers in the power sector.

She said the proposed EPA rules offer both opportunities and challenges for ICAC members.

“Our members have a lot of proven technologies that are available right now to deploy commercially,” said Flanagan, Policy and Programs Associate for ICAC. “But they’re also seeing lots of opportunities and challenges for some of the newer concepts posed by the greenhouse gas power plant rule. There’s a lot of uncertainty around it.”

David Triplett, Sr. Mgr. Environmental Policy & Sustainability at Entergy, offered a utility’s perspective on the proposed rules.

He said while the rules are only proposed and are subject to change before being finalized, they are “important additional inputs” that utilities need to factor into their generation planning processes.

“Our sector really is at an inflection point in terms of change with how we’re meeting resource adequacy requirements,” said Triplett.

Entergy is already taking an “all of the above” approach to resource planning, with a goal of 50% carbon reductions from its fleet by 2030 and to be completely net-zero by 2050.

Triplett said Entergy has signed memorandums of understanding with “a number of partners” to include all potential technologies.

“We’re investigating every possible path to find the one that’s going to be most cost effective and effective feasible for our fleet to get to [net-zero],” he said.

Triplett was asked about what he expects to be the most significant challenges in complying with the proposed power plant emission rules.

“With the with the hydrogen and CCS aspects, there’s significant infrastructure that needs to be built out to support those technologies at our generating facilities that doesn’t exist today or exist in a limited extent,” he said.

Triplett added the caveat that if it does happen, “it will happen here first,” speaking on the existing pipelines in the Gulf Coast region.

Regarding other potential compliance considerations, Triplett noted the importance of timing. With multiple proposed power sector regulations expected to be finalized in 2024, he said thoughtful alignment of compliance requirements is critical to ensuring effective utility resource planning, integration of new generation and continued reliable operation of existing generation resources.

For example, Entergy plans to exit coal by 2030, yet coal compliance dates from the EPA come both before and after Entergy’s anticipated coal retirements.

“Our hope is as EPA takes action to finalize these rules, these various dates will become into closer alignment,” said Triplett. “From our perspective, we don’t want to have to dedicate additional capital to units that are going to deactivate in the near to medium term that could otherwise be deployed more productively for new generation.”

If the New Hampshire Legislature passes House Bill 1486, the state would be required to consider proxy carbon prices in its spending decisions relative to transportation and buildings.

Carbon pricing is an economic instrument and market-based mechanism to curb greenhouse gas emissions, one that is becoming increasingly popular across the globe. According to the World Bank, 73 carbon pricing initiatives have been implemented, covering 23 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2023. 

The U.S. doesn’t currently have a federal tax on carbon, though various lawmakers in Congress have proposed related legislation in recent years.

Anticipating a future carbon tax, Rep. Nicholas Germana, a Keene Democrat, is proposing that the state start taking one into account – what he’s calling “proxy” carbon pricing. HB 1486 would apply specifically to state spending decisions, such as the construction of a new building or purchase of new vehicles. In practice, this would mean state agency purchasing departments would have to consider the cost analysis of carbon impacts in their acquisitions.

“This is a situation I think where we can walk and chew gum at the same time,” Germana said. “We can reduce the burden on taxpayers and reduce carbon emissions. Markets are based on incentives. Absent incentives, it is pretty close to the literal definition of insanity to believe someone will change their behavior.”

Though carbon pricing is often discussed primarily as a tool to fight climate change, Germana presented it to lawmakers as a way to save taxpayers money. He warned members of the House Executive Departments and Administration Committee earlier this month that a federal carbon tax “is coming,” citing existing ones in Canada and the European Union. 

If the U.S. doesn’t go that route, he argued, the country could be at a “significant economic disadvantage,” as it will hurt exports to those international markets. Last October, for example, the European Union began the initial phase of a Europe-wide tax on carbon in imported goods.

As written, the Democrat-sponsored bill would direct the Department of Administrative Services, which manages state government procurement, to take into account a proxy carbon price of $85 per ton starting Jan. 1, 2025, and increase the cost per ton by $10 every Jan. 1 until 2050. 

The $85 per ton is in line with current pricing in Europe, as well as recommendations by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Carbon pricing is ‘the fiscally responsible thing to do’

Charles Wheelan, a senior lecturer and policy fellow at the Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College, testified that markets don’t “necessarily get things right” when there’s a cost that parties don’t have to incur. In this case, Wheelan was referring to pollution and climate change – fossil fuel generators impact the environment and public health, he argued, but aren’t held financially responsible for those impacts.

“The most important thing about this bill is that it would give the state the power to look at the real social cost of whatever they’re purchasing,” he said. 

A carbon price, Wheelan said, is a more efficient way to manage pollution than regulation. He also called it “the fiscally responsible thing to do.”

“If you’re making a procurement decision and one option involves a significant amount of carbon emissions that then does damage elsewhere in the state, whether its climate change-related damage to the ski industry, or erosion on the Seacoast, or health effects that are borne by the state, then in your purchasing decision, you can incorporate those costs,” Wheelan said, adding that he was agnostic about the price of carbon, but that “it is not zero.” 

John Gage, a Windham resident and member of Citizens Climate Lobby, said there are different ways to price carbon. It can be priced by the social cost, as detailed by Wheelan, or based on a temperature target “that we want to hold warming to.” 

Canada and Switzerland use a carbon fee and dividend method, in which the countries collect fees for the burning of fossil fuels and then return the money to citizens. In 2017, the V20, then a group of 20 developing countries vulnerable to climate change, announced a commitment to introduce carbon pricing by 2025.

Sweden established a carbon tax decades ago, in 1991. 

Of HB 1486, Gage said: “We’re not taxing anybody, we’re not spending extra money on something to do good. We’re taking a look at the chance of a federal carbon price coming down on New Hampshire and we are using our insight to save money by purchasing things that will be cheaper to operate in the long-run.”

Rep. Tom Dolan, a Londonderry Republican, said what he gathered from the bill’s testimony were “attempts at social engineering,” specific to driving the electrification of buildings and vehicles. 

“Have you started to consider the stress on our electric grid that has struggled to keep up with all of this electrification?” he asked. 

Gage said it’s likely that Congress and the state of New Hampshire will need to change energy permitting rules, since federal Inflation Reduction Act subsidies have “opened up the floodgates to generate clean energy.” He argued carbon pricing isn’t manipulation, but rather reflects the true costs of different energy options.

A resident of Bradford, Barbara Southard asked the committee to “not be shortsighted on this.”

“We are in a fantastically huge transition right now,” she said. “Not just in New Hampshire, but the whole United States and all of the countries. The whole globe.”

Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

All six New England states, including New Hampshire, are currently part of what was the first mandatory market-based program in the U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Similar to carbon pricing but with a different mechanism, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is a cap-and-trade program among 10 Eastern states to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. Within the RGGI states, fossil fuel electric power generators with a capacity of 25 megawatts or more are required to hold allowances equal to their carbon dioxide emissions over a three-year control period. The number of allowances shrinks every year, incentivizing power generators to emit less carbon – or pay more to do so.

Since 2009, the initiative has raised at least $3 billion in proceeds that have been invested back into states in the forms of energy efficiency, clean and renewable energy, electrification, greenhouse gas abatement, and direct bill assistance. 

According to the RGGI’s annual report in 2020, the nine states that participated in the initiative from the beginning experienced a reduction of over 90 million short tons of annual power sector carbon emissions.

In 2020, New Hampshire received approximately $18.8 million in allowance proceeds, the majority of which was used to provide direct bill assistance to electric consumers. The rest was allocated to the state’s Energy Efficiency Fund and related initiatives. From 2009-2020, the Granite State received $176 million in proceeds.

The RGGI is at a critical juncture. The state of Virginia withdrew from the RGGI in December, and this month, Democrats drafted budget language to return to it. Virginia Republicans have long opposed the state’s membership in the market, and Gov. Glenn Youngkin has called it a “hidden tax” because the state law authorizing participation allows utilities to recover the costs of the allowances from ratepayers. 

Meanwhile, a November court ruling in Pennsylvania blocked the state from joining the RGGI, saying it violates the state constitution. Pennsylvania lawmakers would have to vote to join the RGGI, the state said, rather than the state’s Department of Environmental Protection making the decision on its own.

Originally published in New Hampshire Bulletin. New Hampshire Bulletin is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.