The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced new regulations on April 25 that would force coal-fired power plants to reduce or capture 90 percent of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2039, one year earlier than in the rule originally proposed in May 2023.
Other newly announced coal regulations include a final rule “strengthening and updating the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) for coal-fired power plants, tightening the emissions standard for toxic metals by 67 percent, finalizing a 70 percent reduction in the emissions standard for mercury from existing lignite-fired sources,” and another rule to “reduce pollutants discharged through wastewater from coal-fired power plants by more than 660 million pounds per year.” The EPA also issued an additional rule to require the safe management of coal ash in locations not previously covered by federal regulations.
“Today, EPA is proud to make good on the Biden-Harris administration’s vision to tackle climate change and to protect all communities from pollution in our air, water, and in our neighborhoods,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan.“By developing these standards in a clear, transparent, inclusive manner, EPA is cutting pollution while ensuring that power companies can make smart investments and continue to deliver reliable electricity for all Americans.”
EPA estimates its new regulations will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1.38 billion metric tons by 2047 and create $370 billion in “climate and public health net benefits” over the next twenty years.
Coal in a Regulatory Decline
Partially due to increasingly stringent regulations, electricity generation from coal has fallen from 52 percent of the nation’s total output in the 1990s to just 16.2 percent in 2023. Critics of the new regulations, including Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, argue that EPA’s new rules would make it impossible to open new coal plants and will effectively force those already online to shut down operations.
“These rules are a direct attack on an important and necessary source of American energy—one of our most affordable, reliable resources, and one that is essential here and growing in use around the world,” said Isaac. “The ignorance of this administration is negligent at best, criminal at worst, relegating the least among us to more expensive energy, or even none at all, as millions of Americans are finding out by having their electricity disconnected.
“On one hand they push to electrify everything and then with the other leave us with unreliable electricity,” Isaac said. “The Biden administration is hell bent on destroying coal and reaching new levels of recklessness.”
‘De Facto Ban’ on Coal
The new regulations almost assuredly will face legal challenges from the coal industry and others, says Steve Milloy, founder of JunkScience.com.
“Another unconstitutional EPA rule from the Biden regime that will be DOA at [the Supreme Court] but not until much harm has been caused,” said Milloy. “Congress has not authorized EPA to issue regulations that operate as a de facto ban on coal plants, yet that’s what this regulation amounts to because it mandates emissions control technology (i.e., carbon capture and sequestration) which does not, and will never, exist for coal plants.”
EPA, by contrast, says carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is the “best system of emission reduction for the longest-running existing coal units” and a “cost-reasonable emission control technology that can be applied directly to power plants and can reduce 90 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from the plants.”
“The requirement for imaginary technology violates Clean Air Act notions of only requiring the best available and adequately tested technology,” Milloy said. “The de facto ban violates the 2022 [Supreme Court] decision in West Virginia v. EPA, which established the major questions doctrine, under which agencies cannot undertake significant new actions, like banning coal plants, without authorization from Congress.”
Natural Gas Targeted, Too
Coal plants were not the only target of new EPA regulations, as natural gas power plants are also now required to eliminate or capture 90 percent of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2032, three years earlier than called for when the draft rule was originally proposed in 2023.
The EPA is acting as if it has absolute power unconstrained by the law and prior court rulings, Darren Bakst, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center on Energy & Environment, says in a press release.
“The [EPA] absurdly thinks its authority to regulate means it has the authority to shut down businesses,” said Bakst. “Establishing new regulations for power plants does not mean the agency can effectively force them out of business.
“This is Clean Power Plan Part II, but like with many sequels, it is worse,” Bakst said.
Tim Benson (tbenson@heartland.org) is a senior policy analyst with Heartland Impact.
For more on the Biden administrations power regulations, click here.
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A majority of Americans say it is more important for the U.S. to establish energy independence than to fight climate change, according to new polling.
The poll from Napolitan News Service of 1,000 registered voters shows that 57% of voters say making America energy independent is more important than fighting climate change, while 39% feel the opposite and 4% are unsure.
Those surveyed also were asked: Which is more important, reducing greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change, or keeping the price of cars low enough for families to afford them?
Half of voters (50%) said keeping the price of cars low was more important to them than reducing emissions, while 43% said emissions reductions were more important than the price of buying a car.
When asked, “Which is more important, reducing greenhouse gas emissions or reducing the cost and improving the reliability of electricity and gas for American families?”, 59% said reducing the cost and increasing the reliability was more important compared to 35% who said reducing emissions was more important.
The survey was conducted online by pollster Scott Rasmussen on March 18-19. Field work was conducted by RMG Research. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points
Dan McCaleb is the executive editor of The Center Square. He welcomes your comments. Contact Dan at dmccaleb@thecentersquare.com.
Canada has set ambitious climate goals, aiming to cut its greenhouse-gas emissions by 40 to 45 per cent by 2030, and to hit net-zero emissions by 2050.
Now a senior fellow at Resource Works, Jerome Gessaroli, argues that Canada is over-focusing internally on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, when we should “look at cooperating with developing countries to jointly reduce emissions.”
He continues: “And we do that in a way that helps ourselves. It helps meet our own goals. That’s through Article 6 of the Paris Accord, allowing countries to share emission reduction credits from jointly developed projects.”
Reduction on a global scale
Article 6, says Gessaroli, means this: “We can work towards meeting our own emission goals, and can help developing countries meet theirs. We can do it in a way that’s much more efficient. We get a lot more bang for our buck than if we are trying to just do it domestically on our own.”
The point is that, in the end, emissions are reduced on a global scale — as he stressed in a five-part series that he wrote for Resource Works last November.
And in a study for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (where he is a senior fellow) he wrote: “The benefits could be large. Canada could reduce emissions by 50 per cent more if it carried out methane reduction projects both internationally and domestically, rather than solely in Canada.”
But is Ottawa interested?
Gessaroli says the federal government expressed interest in Article 6 in 2019 — but has not moved since then.
“They barely looked at it. Since this requires government-to-government coordination, it needs Ottawa’s initiative. But there doesn’t seem to be too much interest, too much appetite in that.”
All Ottawa has said so far is: “Going forward, Canada will explore these and other similar options to strengthen international co-operation and generate incentives for further emission reductions.”
Gessaroli on Resource Works
Gessaroli has been working with Resource Works since he first spoke with our Stewart Muir, following a letter that Muir wrote in The Vancouver Sun in 2022: ‘Gas has key role to play in meeting 1.5C climate targets.’
Gessaroli saw in Resource Works advocacy for responsible resource development “for the people, the citizens of BC, in an environmentally responsible manner and in a manner that’s efficient, driven by the private sector.”
And: “Resource Works supports responsible resource development, not uncritical expansion. We have these resources. We should develop them, but in a way that benefits society, respects nature, respects the local peoples, and so that wide elements of society can benefit from that resource development.”
Gessaroli on electric vehicles
Gessaroli hit a shared interest with Resource Works in a 2024 paper for its Energy Futures Institute, critiquing BC’s plan to require that all new vehicles sold in the province must be electric zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) by 2035.
For one thing, he wrote, BC would need to spend $1.8 billion to provide electric charging points for the vehicles. And billions more would be required to provide expanded power generation and transmission systems.
“The Government of BC should adjust or rescind its mandated targets for new minimum zero-emission vehicle sales.”
And on ZEV subsidies
Stewart Muir and Barry Penner, chair of the Energy Futures Institute, wrote a guest column last October in Business in Vancouver. They cited Gessaroli’s paper above, and noted: “According to Gessaroli, meeting BC’s ZEV targets will require an additional 2,700 gigawatt hours of electricity by 2030, and 9,700 gigawatt hours by 2040—almost equal to the output of two Site C dams.”
Gessaroli has also looked at the subsidies BC offers (up to $4,000) to people who buy an electric vehicle.
“The subsidies do help. They do incentivize people to buy EVs. But it’s a very costly way to reduce carbon emissions, anywhere upwards of $600, $700, even $800 a tonne to eliminate one tonne of carbon.
“When you look at the social cost of carbon, the government uses a figure around $170 a tonne. That’s the damage done from every tonne of carbon emitted into the atmosphere. So we’re paying $800 to remove one tonne of carbon when that same tonne of carbon does damage of about $170. That doesn’t sound like a very cost-effective way of getting rid of carbon, does it?”
Gessaroli on Donald Trump’s policies
Gessaroli says tariffs on imports are not the only benefit that Donald Trump plans for U.S. industry that will hurt Canada.
“He also wants to reduce tax rates, 15% for US manufacturers, and allow full deductibility for equipment purchases. You reduce regulations and red tape on companies while lowering their tax rates. They’re already competitive to begin with. Well, they’re going to be even more competitive, more innovative.”
For Canada, he says: “Get rid of the government heavy hand of overtaxing and enforcing inefficient and ineffective regulations. Get rid of all of that. Encourage competition in the marketplace. And over time, we’d find Canadians can be quite innovative and quite competitive in our own right. And we can hold our own. We can be better off.
“And there’d be more tax revenues being generated by the government. With the tax revenue, you can build the roads, build the hospitals, improve the healthcare system, things like that.
“But without this type of vibrant economic type activity, you’re going to get the stagnation we’re seeing right now.”
About Jerome Gessaroli
Gessaroli leads the Sound Economic Policy Project at the B.C. Institute of Technology. He is the lead Canadian co-author of Financial Management: Theory and Practice, a widely used textbook. His writing has appeared in many Canadian newspapers.
Stewart Muir, CEO of Resource Works, highlights Gessaroli’s impact: “Jerome brings a level of economic and policy analysis that cuts through the noise. His research doesn’t just challenge assumptions—it provides a roadmap for smarter, more effective climate and energy policies.
“Canada needs more thinkers like him, who focus on pragmatic solutions that benefit both the environment and the economy.”
Gessaroli and Karen, his wife of 34 years, live in Vancouver and enjoy cruising to unwind. In his downtime, Gessaroli reads about market ethics and political economy — which he calls his idea of relaxation.
