EPA Proposes Climate Change Rules

In the latest of a series of regulations to address the threat of climate change, EPA proposed rules on new power plants this week:

The Environmental Protection Agency published its rule limiting carbon emissions from new power plants on Wednesday to the dismay of coal advocates and the GOP.

The proposed rule, published nearly four months after EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy announced it, is a core element of President Obama’s climate change agenda.

Included in the new performance standards, the EPA pushes for new coal-fired power plants to be built with carbon capture technology, which Republicans argue is impossible since the technology isn’t ready. McCarthy says the technology is ready and is already being used.

You can read the regulation and submit comments here.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.