https://www.powermag.com/epa-unleashes-four-pronged-assault-on-fossil-fuel-power-pollution/?oly_enc_id=0417H5580989J7O

Among the rules is the EPA’s final Carbon Pollution Standards, which marks the agency’s third attempt to broadly curb GHG emissions from the nation’s fleet of coal plants and its first to regulate GHG emissions from new natural gas-fired power plants. The agency also issued an updated and strengthened Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), which targets coal power emissions. Separately, the EPA finalized the Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards (ELGs), which aim to drastically reduce pollutants discharged by steam power plants through wastewater. Finally, the suite of regulations includes a final rule governing legacy coal combustion residuals, addressing the long-delayed mandate from the DC Circuit to implement oversight on coal ash regulation.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan on Wednesday told reporters the agency’s regulatory sweep is part of an integrated, coordinated and economically efficient approach aimed at streamlining regulatory processes and delivering predictability. The approach, he explained, stems from a pledge made during CERAweek 2022.

“I stood before industry stakeholders and outlined a clear plan for EPA as an approach to addressing harmful pollution from the power sector. On that day, I committed to maintaining transparency and open dialogue so that state and federal energy regulators, power companies, and grid operators would have the information they needed to make long-term investments in the transition to a cleaner energy economy,” he said. “And today, I’m proud to announce that we’re following through on that commitment.”

However, the EPA’s suite of final regulations immediately elicited strong criticism from parts of the U.S. power industry, which had urged the agency to heed their concerns about technology feasibility, stringent compliance timelines, and reliability impacts.

Legal experts have cautioned the GHG rule, prominently, will likely encounter legal challenges. “We can also expect a fierce political and legal fight ahead,”  Mona Dajani, global co-chair of Energy Infrastructure & Hydrogen at law firm Baker Botts, told POWER. “Specifically on the legal front, industry opponents will challenge the new rule as a violation of the major questions doctrine, as defined in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA. That decision effectively limited EPA’s reach,” she noted.

The following is a detailed overview of the final rules released today. (See POWER’s coverage of industry analysis and reactions to the regulatory sweep here).

Final Carbon Pollution Standards for Existing Coal-fired and New Gas-fired Power Plants

The EPA finalized several actions under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act (CAA) covering existing coal-, oil-, and gas-fired steam generating units (under Section 111[d]) and new and reconstructed gas-fired combustion turbines and modified coal-fired steam generating units (under Section 111[b)]):

• Final emission guidelines for GHG emissions from existing coal-fired and oil/gas-fired steam-generating electric generating units (EGU),

• Finalized revisions to the new source performance standards (NSPS) for GHG emissions from new and reconstructed fossil fuel-fired stationary combustion turbine EGUs,

• Finalized revisions to the NSPS for GHG emissions from fossil fuel-fired steam generating units that undertake a large modification based upon the 8-year review required by the CAA.

The EPA, in addition, finalized its repeal of the  Trump-era Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, but it refrained, as it had indicated in February, from finalizing emissions guidelines for GHG emissions from existing gas-fired power plants. The agency has said it will address emissions from the “entire fleet of natural gas-fired turbines” as part of a more “comprehensive approach” to regulate “climate, toxic, and criteria air pollution.”

Consistent with the statutory command of CAA Section 111, the final NSPS and emission guidelines of the EPA’s actions “reflect the application of the best system of emission reduction (BSER) that, taking into account costs, energy requirements, and other statutory factors, is adequately demonstrated,” the EPA said on Thursday.

Via UKWIN email stream