Nudge or Shove? Obama Admin Takes Another Shot in 'War on Coal' With Announcement of Something Never Done Before

WASHINGTON (TheBlaze/AP) — In June a White House adviser said "a war on coal is exactly what’s needed" to combat climate change. Now, the Obama administration is taking another step in waging that war, pressing ahead with tough requirements for new coal-fired power plants, moving to impose for the first time strict limits on the pollution blamed for global warming.

This proposal would reshape where Americans get electricity, away from a coal-dependent past into a future fired by cleaner sources of energy. It's also a key step in President Barack Obama's global warming plans, because it would help end what he called "the limitless dumping of carbon pollution" from power plants.

Smoke rises from the Colstrip Steam Electric Station in Colstrip, Mont., Monday, July 1, 2013. President Barack Obama's climate change plan calls for limits on carbon dioxide emissions from coal-burning power plants like the Colstrip Steam Electric Station. The plant, which employs 388 people, emits an estimated 17 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. (Photo: AP/Matthew Brown)

Restrictions on coal-fired power plants might sound familiar. The Environmental Protection Agency already proposed several renditions of a rule that would limit emissions from existing plants, thus requiring them power plants to make costly upgrades to equipment.

You might remember also Obama's interview with the San Francisco Chronicle where he gave his intentions to "bankrupt" coal-fired power plants.

“So if somebody wants to build a coal power plant they can, it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted,” Obama said during the interview.

Although the proposed rule won't immediately affect plants already operating, it eventually would force the government to limit emissions from the existing power plant fleet, which accounts for a third of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Obama has given the Environmental Protection Agency until next summer to propose those regulations.

The EPA provided The Associated Press with details of the proposal prior to the official announcement, which was expected Friday morning. The public will have a chance to comment on the rule before it becomes final.

In this April 4, 2013 file photo, a mechanized shovel loads coal onto a haul truck at the Cloud Peak Energy's Spring Creek mine near Decker, Mont. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown,file)

Despite some tweaks, the rule packs the same punch as one announced last year, which was widely criticized by industry and Republicans as effectively banning any new coal projects in the U.S.

Again, that's because to meet the standard, new coal-fired power plants would need to install expensive technology to capture carbon dioxide and bury it underground. No coal-fired power plant has done that yet, in large part because of the cost. And those plants that the EPA points to as potential models, such as a coal plant being built in Kemper County, Miss., by Southern Co., have received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants and tax credits.

Coal, which is already struggling to compete with cheap natural gas, accounts for 40 percent of U.S. electricity, a share that was already shrinking. And natural gas would need no additional pollution controls to comply.

"For power producers and coal mining companies that reject these standards, they have no reason to complain, and every excuse to innovate," said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., the author of a 2009 bill to limit global warming. The legislation, backed by the White House, passed the House, but died in the Senate.

The regulations have been in the works since 2011 and stem from a 1970 law passed by Congress to control air pollution. In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that that law, the Clean Air Act, could be applied to heat-trapping pollution. The EPA already has issued rules aimed at curbing global warming pollution from automobiles and the largest industrial sources.

An EPA official told the AP that the rule doesn't specify any particular technology. But the official acknowledged that carbon capture was the only current technology available for a company to meet the threshold of 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per megawatt hour of electricity. To put that in perspective, a modern coal plant without carbon controls would release about 1,800 pounds per megawatt hour.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement of the rule had not been made.

The administration went back to the drawing board after receiving more than 2 million comments on its first proposal, which was legally vulnerable because it required coal and natural gas to meet the same limit. Coal and natural gas now have separate standards, but the latest proposal will almost certainly to be litigated once it becomes final, which the law requires the EPA to do in a year.

The legal argument likely will be based around whether carbon capture and storage is a demonstrated technology.

"EPA has set a dangerous and far-reaching precedent for the broader economy by failing to base environmental standards on reliable technology," said Hall Quinn, president and CEO of the National Mining Association. The EPA regulation "effectively bans coal from America's power portfolio," he said.

This report from WSAZ details how the coal industry in Kentucky is already experiencing tough times:

The EPA will seek comments on whether to subject three coal plants in various stages of the development to the new standard, or treat them as existing sources. They are the Sunflower Electric Power Corp.'s facility near Holcomb, Kan., Power4Georgian's planned Washington County, Ga., facility, and Wolverine Power Cooperative's plans for a new power plant near Rogers City, Mich.

In case you missed it, take a look at then Sen. Obama's interview with the San Francisco Chronicle in 2008 regarding his thoughts on power plants and a cap-and-trade system:

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