The nine things you need to know about Obama’s new climate rules

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http://grist.org/climate-energy/the-nine-things-you-need-to-know-about-obamas-new-climate-rules/

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1. What will the rules do? The EPA intends to create a “rate-based” limit on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants for each state depending on its current emissions. Rate-based means it sets a standard for how much CO2 is emitted per megawatt hour of electricity produced, not a limit on total carbon tonnage. The plan is designed, as was expected, to give states maximum flexibility to meet these goals in whichever way works best for them and to avoid constricting economic growth. States can, however, choose to convert their rate-based goal into a total tonnage goal if they prefer.

2. How much will the plan cut emissions? Nationwide, the plan is projected to reduce power plants’ CO2 emissions from 2005 levels by 26 or 27 percent by 2020 and about 30 percent by 2030. What’s strange about these numbers is that EPA is setting an ambitious target for 2020, and then barely improving it over the next decade. That’s pretty weak. As clean energy technology becomes cheaper, states should be able to do a lot more to reduce their emissions. The targets can be strengthened in the future, but don’t expect a President Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush to do so. When asked why the rate reductions are so front-loaded, an EPA senior official told reporters, “Some of the measures [to reduce emissions] can be implemented pretty rapidly.”

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3. Why are these referred to as regulations on “coal-fired power plants,” and why are opponents calling this a “War on Coal”? Coal is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, and it accounts for more than 40 percent of American electric generation and 74 percent of the CO2 emissions from the electricity sector. Under the proposed rules, only coal plants will have to be cleaned up, reduce their usage, or be retired. The rules would have to be much stricter to make us also shift away from natural gas. (We get almost none of our electricity from oil.)

4. What do states have to do? Each state will be required to submit its own plan for complying with the rules by June 2016, although they can request a one-year extension, until June 2017. States can also create a multi-state plan, thus encouraging more interstate compacts like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade system in Northeastern states; for such multi-state plans, they can request a two-year extension. If states don’t submit a compliant plan, EPA will make one for them.