Townhall
EPA to De Facto Ban All Construction of New Coal Power Plants
by Katie Pavlich
Sep 12, 2013

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Environmental Protection Agency will propose new rules next week banning the construction of new coal power plants in the United States that do not meet expensive new and ridiculous efficiency standards. The new standards will force power plants underground, literally.

The Obama administration plans to block the construction of new coal-fired power plants unless they are built with novel and expensive technology to capture greenhouse-gas emissions, according to people familiar with a draft proposal.

The administration's rule on emissions from new power plants, a long-awaited measure that is one of the capstones of the administration's climate-change agenda, is set to be formally proposed by the end of next week. While the new rule isn't final yet and is likely to face a legal challenge, it would be another blow to a coal industry already buffeted by a bonanza of cheap natural gas and increasing regulation.

The person and others briefed on the rule said such stringent limits would ban new coal plants, which generally release about twice as much carbon dioxide as the proposed limits. Even the newest, most advanced coal-fired power plants in the world would fall far short of that revised standard, they said.

The only way coal plants could comply is to capture carbon-dioxide emissions and stick them underground—a costly process that hasn't been demonstrated at commercial scale before.

"This shows the administration discounts and does not appreciate the value of coal and how it can serve the country. You're impairing the backbone of the power grid," said Hal Quinn, chief executive of the National Mining Association, an industry trade group.

And of course, this hurts the middle class and poor people the most not only through an increase in utility costs but through job losses...

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