WRI Publications Feed: U.S. Federal Agencies and Climate Change

Clearing the Air: Reducing Upstream Greenhouse Gas Emissions from U.S. Natural Gas Systems

Sarah Parsons — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 17:48:29 -0400

Key Findings

Fugitive methane emissions from natural gas systems represent a significant source of global warming pollution in the U.S. Reductions in methane emissions are urgently needed as part of the broader effort to slow the rate of global temperature rise.
Cutting methane leakage rates from natural gas systems to less than 1 percent of total production would ensure that the climate impacts of natural gas are lower than coal or diesel fuel over any time horizon. This goal can be achieved by reducing emissions by one-half to two-thirds below current levels through the widespread use of proven, cost-effective technologies.
Fugitive methane emissions occur at every stage of the natural gas life cycle; however, the total amount of leakage is unclear. More comprehensive and current direct emissions measurements are needed from this regionally diverse and rapidly expanding energy sector.
Recent standards from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will substantially reduce leakage from natural gas systems, but to help slow the rate of global warming and improve air quality, further action by states and EPA should directly address fugitive methane from new and existing wells and equipment.
Federal rules building on existing Clean Air Act (CAA) authorities could provide an appropriate framework for reducing upstream methane emissions. This approach accounts for input by affected industries, while allowing flexibility for states to implement rules according to unique local circumstances.

Can the U.S. Get There from Here? Using Existing Federal Laws and State Action to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Sarah Parsons — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 16:51:17 -0500

Summary

U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are expected to rise unless additional policy actions are taken. This report identifies a suite of policies that the Administration can pursue that do not require new legislation by the U.S. Congress. If pursued with “go-getter” level ambition, those policies can reduce U.S. emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels in 2020.

Key Findings

Without new action by the U.S. Administration, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will increase over time. The United States will fail to make the deep emissions reductions needed in coming decades, and will not meet its international commitment to reduce GHG emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.
The U.S. EPA should immediately pursue “go-getter” emissions reductions from power plants and natural gas systems using its authority under the Clean Air Act. These two sectors represent two of the top opportunities for substantial GHG reductions between now and 2035.
The U.S. Administration should pursue hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) reductions through both the Montreal Protocol process and under its independent Clean Air Act authority. Eliminating HFCs represents the biggest opportunity for GHG emissions reductions behind power plants.
U.S. states should complement federal actions to reduce emissions through state energy efficiency, renewables, transportation, and other actions. States can augment federal reductions.
New federal legislation will eventually be needed, because even go-getter action by federal and state governments will probably fail to achieve the more than 80 percent GHG emissions reductions necessary to fend off the most deleterious impacts of climate change.

This chart shows potential reductions under existing federal authorities and state action through 2035.

Interactive Graphic

Embed this graphic on your site.

Presentation

Can The U.S. Get There From Here? from World Resources Institute (WRI)

Testimony: American Energy Security and Innovation: An Assessment of North America's Energy Resources

Sarah Parsons — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 15:21:07 -0500

Summary of Key Points

Our energy choices need to factor in both opportunities and risks. This testimony gives particular attention to why we must consider the risk of climate change, both on our resources being developed and utilized today and on our choices for development into the future. It concludes with the following recommendations:

Congress should request that the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee review the current authorities of federal agencies and national laboratories, and recommend how consideration of risks associated with climate change can be more directly incorporated into decision-making.
Congress should support efforts to better assess the impacts of climate change on America’s energy infrastructure and incorporate this into planning and investment decisions.
Congress should keep in mind four important criteria in considering policies to drive more effective clean energy growth and competitiveness: any energy policy should be comprehensive, long-term, targeted, and inclusive.
In capturing energy efficiency across the economy, Congress can play a constructive role in two key areas:
- Informed consumer choice: supporting and expanding programs to help ensure product labeling is accurate and publicly reported in a timely manner, to encourage energy-wise investment decisions throughout the U.S. economy.
- Efficiency standards: supporting and extending the ability of federal agencies to develop and update energy efficiency standards for vehicles, appliances, and other energy-consuming equipment that is sold into U.S. commerce.
Congress must work toward reaching bipartisan agreement on national energy policies that encourage more efficient energy consumption, increase the diversity of domestic energy production, maximize deployment of low-carbon energy technologies, and minimize environmental impacts throughout our energy systems. In the near-term, it is also critical for Congress to provide funding and incentives for low-carbon and clean energy technologies.

An Updated Response to EEI’s Timeline of Environmental Regulations

Kevin Lustig — Mon, 21 May 2012 10:16:48 -0400

This fact sheet updates the analysis done in our earlier response to EEI’s timeline of environmental regulations.

EPA remains on track in issuing rules that provide a path to a cleaner power fleet.

After years of delay, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working to reduce dangerous and toxic pollutants released to the air and water by electric power plants, as required by the Clean Air Act (CAA) and other statutes. Four key points about EPA’s actions are clear:

Clarifying EEI’s Timeline

Figure 1: Edison Electric Institute’s Timeline of Environmental Regulatory Requirements for the Utility Industry (Click to enlarge)

Figure 2: Modified Edison Electric Institute Timeline, Removing All But New Compliance Obligations (Click to enlarge)

Figure 3: Timeline of Actual Compliance Obligations for Electric Power Plants (Click to enlarge)

Contrary to assertions by industry groups, EPA is pursuing a realistic timeline over the next five to ten years to bring the electric power industry into compliance with the law.
In most cases, the electric power sector has been on notice for several years (in some cases several decades) that these pollutants would be regulated.
Without new regulations, these pollutants will continue to impair America’s waterways, heat the planet, perpetuate acid rain, and lead to preventable hospital visits and premature deaths.
In each of its rulemakings, EPA provides for an extensive, open, and evidence-based public process. This leads to more robust and fair rules for the electric power sector. As EPA finalizes each rule, it will establish an increasingly clear pathway for investments in an American electric generation fleet for the 21st century.

CEOs and other representatives of major electric power corporations have suggested that EPA’s regulatory timeline is unworkable. The largest industry trade group, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), produced a slide in 2010 (updated in May 2011) that purports to display an onslaught of new requirements for power plants. EEI has distributed this slide (reproduced in Figure 1) widely on Capitol Hill, where it presumably hopes to win lawmakers’support for additional delays in EPA rules or even a stripping of EPA’s regulatory authority.

WRI has identified four categories of EPA activities on the EEI timeline that are potentially misleading. When these activities are removed, only the timing of actual new compliance obligations is left. In Figure 2, “X”s (color coded for each filter in the screening process) have been applied to remove events from EEI’s timeline that are not consequential from a compliance standpoint.

Rules that have been remanded or vacated by court decisions that do not impose compliance obligations.
Rules that were already in effect when EEI circulated its chart, representing compliance obligations that already exist; there are no new requirements imposed by these rules.
Public input through the rulemaking process (which leads to more robust and fair rules for the electric power sector, and should not be conflated with new compliance obligations).
National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) rules for various pollutants that set standards for states to achieve. They do not establish new requirements for electric generation units.

The EPA regulatory process is far from a “train wreck.” EEI’s misleading timeline consists mostly of procedural events and activities that will not impose a direct compliance obligation on power plants. This serves only to spread confusion about EPA’s actual regulatory schedule.

Figure 3 shows a more accurate picture of the timeline for new requirements applicable to electric power plants.

EPA is carrying out the intent of Congress (through the passage of the bipartisan Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and subsequent amendments) to clean the nation’s air and water. These rules can help the United States transition to cleaner and more efficient power plants by establishing a clear pathway for investments in an electric generation fleet for the 21st century.

The CAA requires EPA and states to regulate and reduce harmful pollutants from major emissions sources, including power plants. To date, this framework has delivered substantial improvements in air quality and significant public health benefits estimated between $82 and $556 billion annually. Over the next decade, power plants will be subject to new rules under the CAA as well as the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) to control substances that cause serious health problems and substantial damage to America’s natural resources. These rules will take effect after long lead times; in most cases industry has been on notice for years that these pollutants would be regulated.

Many of the regulations under consideration by EPA have been in the regulatory pipeline for over a decade. Due to administrative delays and litigation resulting in court decisions remanding or vacating previous rules, many of these rules have not been finalized or the final rules were reversed. In many cases Congress has set statutory deadlines for EPA to act, EPA has missed the deadlines, and courts have ordered EPA to act.

Download the complete fact sheet (includes additional figures, footnotes, and references) (PDF, 476 Kb)

Fact Sheet: U.S. Electricity Markets Increasingly Favor Alternatives to Coal

Kevin Lustig — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:20:35 -0400

The U.S. electric power system is gradually shifting toward cleaner forms of generation. One sign of this transition is the declining use of coal for electric power production.

In 2011, use of coal for U.S. power generation dropped to its lowest level in more than a decade, according to the federal government’s independent U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). In fact, the EIA reported1 earlier in 2012 that coal’s share of total U.S. electric power generation dropped below 40% for the last two months of 2011, the lowest level since 1978.

To understand the cause of this decline, it is important to examine contributing market forces. Doing so provides important context for recent coal plant retirement announcements, particularly given that some companies have attributed retirements to EPA rules that are still years away from going into force. For example, FirstEnergy Corp. announced in late January 20122 that it would retire several of its smaller coal-fired power plants, explaining that the decision was “based on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), which were recently finalized, and other environmental regulations.” FirstEnergy, however, had previously cited a range of reasons3 for its decision to reduce operations at many of its smaller coal plants.

Furthermore, available evidence does not support the notion that regulations are the primary driver behind recent coal plant retirement announcements. These business decisions4 are heavily influenced by such market forces as lower natural gas prices, declining growth in electricity demand, rising coal prices, and increased cost-competitiveness of renewables.

Download the fact sheet to keep reading and see full citations.

Fact Sheet: EPA Mercury Rules and Power Reliability

Kevin Lustig — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:30:45 -0500

Recent Electricity Reliability Assessments

North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). (November 2011) 2011 Long-Term Reliability Assessment.

M.J. Bradley & Associates, LLC; Analysis Group. (November 2011) Ensuring a Clean, Modern Electric Generating Fleet while Maintaining Electric System Reliability; Fall 2011 Update.

DOE. (December 2011) Resource Adequacy Implications of Forthcoming EPA Air Quality Regulations.

Bipartisan Policy Center. (June 2011) Environmental Regulation and Electric System Reliability.

CERES. (November 2011) New Jobs-Cleaner Air Part II: An investment in American Businesses and American Jobs.

Edison Electric Institute. (January 2011) Potential Impacts of Environmental Regulation on the U.S. Generation Fleet.

Electricity generation capacity adequacy and transmission and ancillary services reliability are difficult to quantify and forecast due to the inherently local scale of power flow modeling. However, the lack of reliability problems over decades of previous Clean Air Act regulation and the flexibility of the standards suggest that the U.S. can keep the lights on while cost effectively removing toxic pollutants from power plant emissions.

Power plants are the largest source of mercury emissions to the air. This mercury eventually makes its way into water, and can cause neurological problems for people who eat contaminated seafood. Because of the dangers of mercury emissions, especially to children and pregnant women, a court order mandated that the EPA issue a final set of Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) by December 16, 2011.

Recent modeling assessments have typically focused more broadly on the cumulative impacts of EPA regulations, including: the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), the Coal Combustion Residuals rule, the 316 (b) Cooling Water Intake Structures rule, and the yet-to-be announced New Source Performance Standards for greenhouse gases. Recent studies have varied largely based on assumptions regarding the stringency of pending regulations, the costs of compliance measures, and the legal flexibility of regulatory enforcement.

Rules Are Flexible, and States Are Prepared

While there are modeling and forecasting limits for assessing long-term electricity system reliability, recent studies indicate that MATS and other EPA rules can be effective and implemented in a timely way while allowing for a range of compliance outcomes. The feasibility of cost-effectively complying with new regulations while maintaining electricity system reliability is supported by four key points:

Both state and federal regulators have a suite of flexible enforcement options, which they have been using for decades, to delay power plant closures when this is necessary to preserve grid reliability; for example, the Cooling Water rule requires states to first consider reliability in implementing new regulations;
While states often have the authority to set more protective pollution control standards in the interest of public health and welfare, there is no evidence that they would do so at the risk of grid reliability. Many states have already exercised this authority without imperiling electricity reliability — as of 2011, 17 states have already imposed rules on mercury and other toxic emissions from power plants, including Montana;
Adequate new plant capacity is in the pipeline to replace the majority of potentially affected power plants; most American power companies are on record as already having prepared for expected environmental regulations;
In terms of compliance, the MATS rule allows for temporal and technological flexibility. As this fact sheet goes to press, the final rule has not yet been published but is expected to allow three years for compliance, with an optional 4th year extension from the EPA or additional security-based extension from the President. A wide range of commercially viable, proven compliance technologies from Flue Gas Desulphurization (FGD) to Dry Sorbent Injection (DSI) and Activated Carbon Injection (ACI) are available to help reduce toxic air emissions and can be installed in 10 to 30 months, providing ample time for America’s skilled engineers, manufactures and technicians to conduct plant upgrades within the legally allotted time frame.

Download the fact sheet to keep reading and see full citations.

More than Meets the Eye: The Social Cost of Carbon in U.S. Climate Policy, in Plain English

Maggie Barron — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 12:25:58 -0400

Presidents since Ronald Reagan have required that significant rules issued by the federal government be accompanied through intra-governmental review by a cost-benefit analysis. In addition, the Obama administration (like the Bush administration before it) has imposed a requirement to assess climate regulation through the lens of a figure (or range of figures) known as the “social cost of carbon” (SCC). The SCC estimates the benefit to be achieved, expressed in monetary value, by avoiding the damage caused by each additional metric ton (tonne) of carbon dioxide (CO2) put into the atmosphere.

The impact of SCC numbers is not theoretical and has consequences for the government regulatory process and therefore for the strength of regulations on climate change that emerge from it. Application of this tool can be problematic to achieving optimum outcomes for society. A growing literature indicates that developing the SCC requires assumptions that go well beyond the usual boundaries of science or economics. It requires many judgment calls that are hidden in complex economic models and largely invisible to policymakers and stakeholders. The Obama administration has formulated a standardized approach to estimating the SCC for all new federal rules issued that would regulate greenhouse gases. In the case of climate change, the government calculates the cost imposed on society globally by each additional tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas. These include health impacts, economic dislocation, agricultural changes, and other effects that climate change can impose on humanity. The benefit to society of avoiding those costs is summed up in the social cost of carbon.

In 2009 an interagency team of U.S. government specialists, tasked to estimate the SCC, reported a range of values from $5 to $65 per tonne of carbon dioxide. The choice of a final figure (or range of figures) is, in itself, a major policy decision, since it sets a likely ceiling for the cost per tonne that any federal regulation could impose on the economy to curb CO2. At $5 a tonne, government could do very little to regulate CO2; at $65, it could do significantly more. Higher SCC numbers, such as the United Kingdom’s range of $41–$124 per tonne of CO2 with a central value of $83, would justify, from an economics perspective, even more rigorous regulation.

This paper discusses the limitations that the special nature of climate change imposes on cost-benefit analysis and its constituent parts, primarily focusing on the estimation of the SCC. It explains in plain English the various steps in calculating the SCC, the weaknesses and strengths of those calculations, and how they are used to inform climate policy. The aim is to help policymakers, regulators, civil society, and others judge for themselves the reliability of using the resulting numbers in making policy decisions. Framed as a series of questions and answers, it also allows these stakeholders to understand the current debate within the economics community as to whether climate policy is a special case for which standard cost-benefit and SCC tools of the trade are not adequate to assess policy options.

What’s Ahead for Power Plants & Industry? Using the Clean Air Act to Reduce GHGs, Building on Regional Programs

Maggie Barron — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 09:20:06 -0500

Executive Summary

In the absence of congressional action on climate change, all eyes are on the states and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to see how they will regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing large power plants and industrial facilities. Indeed, power plants and industrial facilities are the sources of half of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, making those plants and facilities central to any effort to reduce the country’s total emissions. This working paper explores a promising pathway for the states and EPA to make these reductions using the standards of performance under section 111 of the Clean Air Act.

EPA has announced that it will begin the process for regulating power plants and refineries under section 111. EPA has scheduled listening sessions with stakeholders and intends to issue draft performance standards for new and modified power plants by July 26, 2011, and at the same time issue to the states a draft mandatory guideline that requires states to develop plans to impose performance standards on existing power plants. The final performance standards and mandatory guidelines are expected in May 2012. The process for refineries will lag behind that for the electricity sector by about six months, with draft rules to be issued in December 2011 and final rules expected in November 2012.

Like many other requirements of the Clean Air Act (the Act), the standards of performance under section 111 are designed and implemented through a federal-state partnership. EPA lists the categories of sources and establishes performance standards for new and modified emitters within listed categories. EPA also establishes a mandatory “guideline” for states, creating a federal “floor” for regulation of existing sources that applies only if the states fail to set their own standards of performance that meet or exceed this floor. This guideline includes possible “system[s] of emission reduction” that the states may use to set standards of performance. In promulgating these plans, the states will have considerable flexibility, since the standards of performance under section 111(d) may take the form of traditional emissions rate limitations or any number of other more flexible mechanisms. The emergence of state cap-and-trade programs raises the question of whether these cap-and-trade programs could be used to meet a state’s obligations under section 111(d) of the Act.

The traditional approach to regulating power plant and industrial facilities is through performance standards that prescribe specific emissions limitations on individual sources. This approach has been used for years to control conventional pollutant emissions, and is the safest approach from a legal defensibility standpoint. Because many states have already begun regulating some existing sources using cap and trade, the traditional approach may not be the one preferred by the states or their stakeholders. Indeed, states that have already chosen to reduce emissions from power plants and industry using flexible, marketbased approaches, can be expected to develop plans calling for alternatives to the traditional source-specific performance standards. EPA under George W. Bush concluded that the Clean Air Act allows cap and trade as a demonstrated and effective form of regulation under Section 111(d), and the Obama EPA has not contested this interpretation. Until federal courts rule on this approach, however, there will be some uncertainty about its viability.

The assumption that the states and many of their stakeholders will propose cap and trade under section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act has led to a number of questions around program design features, such as whether the Act allows offsets, or trading across listed categories of sources and whether the existing regional cap-and-trade program designs would be acceptable to EPA under section 111(d). Even though many of these issues are questions of first impression and therefore cannot be answered with absolute certainty, this paper explores the arguments for and against specific cap-and-trade design features in the context of section 111, including the implications for existing and planned regional cap-and-trade programs.

Findings

This working paper examines the process for establishing performance standards covering existing power plants and industrial facilities in the United States and finds:

Congress granted the EPA and the states considerable flexibility in determining how to cover existing power plants and industrial facilities under section 111 of the Clean Air Act.
After lengthy collaboration with stakeholders, twenty-three states designed and many implemented flexible, marketbased emissions-trading mechanisms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants and industrial facilities.
The discretion afforded to states under the Clean Air Act should permit them to propose a variety of policy mechanisms, including cap and trade.
The regional cap-and-trade designs present specific opportunities and challenges when reconciling the designs with section 111 of the act, including the following:
- Offsets cannot be used to meet federal minimum reductions but may be allowed above and beyond federal minimums.
- Trading between regulated categories of sources depends on the EPA’s interpretation of the act.
- Borrowing and safety valve mechanisms are problematic unless they can be designed to ensure minimum reductions within federal time frames.

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the United States Using Existing Federal Authorities and State Action

admin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:16:58 -0400

Click here to explore emissions, reduction scenarios, and agency actions with our interactive tool.

WRI’s analysis of potential greenhouse gas emissions reductions by federal and state governments suggests a range of potential outcomes is possible. On the federal level, whether reductions are achieved at the lower end or upper end of the range shown in Figure 1 depends on the extent to which the Obama Administration and subsequent administrations use existing regulatory authority to go after reductions shown to be technically possible in the literature. On the state level, whether reductions are realized at the lower or upper end of the range projected in Figure 2 depends similarly on the continued resolve by governors and legislative leaders in the 25 states counted as having taken actions. The findings set out here represent an assessment of what is possible given available inputs for some key sectors. It does not include potential emissions reductions achievable through federal policies to reduce vehicle miles traveled, management of agricultural lands and forests, new federal investments in areas such as energy efficiency, renewable energy infrastructure, or other areas that could yield reductions, nor new federal legislation of any kind. Key findings are summarized below.

Figure 1: Projected U.S. Emissions under Different Federal Regulatory Scenarios

Figure 2: Projected U.S. Emissions under Different Federal Regulatory Scenarios and State Scenarios

If federal agencies and states pursue the path of “go getters” and move strongly to achieve the reductions published literature suggests are technically feasible in the sectors analyzed, the U.S. could achieve significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, which approach but fall short of President Obama’s Copenhagen pledge to reduce emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.
If, however, federal agencies fail to capitalize on available reduction opportunities and states fall short on their announced plans to reduce emissions, middleof- the-road or lackluster reductions will result, falling far short of the 17 percent reduction by 2020 goal.
Longer-term reductions post-2020 are less certain under all analyzed scenarios, primarily due to uncertainty about how quickly aging power plants will be replaced and the transportation sector can be transformed. Regulatory policies can drive technology, but without knowing what technological advances will happen and when, it is difficult to project the tightening of regulatory standards.
All scenarios under current federal authority and announced state plans show the United States far off the pace of reductions the IPCC suggests are necessary by mid-century to prevent average global temperatures from increasing more than 2 degrees Celsius.
While the results of the analysis suggest that existing federal regulatory tools can be used effectively to reduce emissions alongside state actions, it is clear that the federal government and states will need to achieve reductions beyond those identified in even the most ambitious regulatory scenario if the United States is to meet its Copenhagen commitment. Some of these reductions might be found in regulatory policies not analyzed here, such as agricultural and forest lands management (approximately 7 percent of the U.S. inventory) or transportation planning (approximately 27 percent). Implementation of other environmental policies that encourage high-emitting sectors to modernize could also yield more reductions, such as mercury, sulfur dioxide, ozone and ash disposal regulations affecting aging coal plants.
Among the existing federal regulatory tools most useful to achieve reductions are the mobile source and New Source Performance Standard provisions of the Clean Air Act, as well as the existing authority under Title VI of the Act to reduce hydrofluorocarbons. The vehicle fuel efficiency authority of the Department of Transportation is also important. State action that contributes reductions beyond federal regulatory policies will likewise be essential to meeting reduction goals.
The analysis shows that a significant portion of the reductions can be achieved in non-energy emissions. It is expected that these non-energy reductions can be accomplished without energy price increases.
It is likely that the U.S. Congress and states will need to step up to augment existing regulatory tools, especially if the United States is to gear up to reduce emissions by the approximately 80 to 95 percent needed by 2050 to ward off the most deleterious effects of climate change.

WRI Publications Feed: U.S. Federal Agencies and Climate Change

Clearing the Air: Reducing Upstream Greenhouse Gas Emissions from U.S. Natural Gas Systems

Key Findings

Can the U.S. Get There from Here? Using Existing Federal Laws and State Action to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Summary

Key Findings

Interactive Graphic

Embed this graphic on your site.

Presentation

Testimony: American Energy Security and Innovation: An Assessment of North America's Energy Resources

Summary of Key Points

An Updated Response to EEI’s Timeline of Environmental Regulations

This fact sheet updates the analysis done in our earlier response to EEI’s timeline of environmental regulations.

Clarifying EEI’s Timeline

Download the complete fact sheet (includes additional figures, footnotes, and references) (PDF, 476 Kb)

Fact Sheet: U.S. Electricity Markets Increasingly Favor Alternatives to Coal

Fact Sheet: EPA Mercury Rules and Power Reliability

Recent Electricity Reliability Assessments

Rules Are Flexible, and States Are Prepared

More than Meets the Eye: The Social Cost of Carbon in U.S. Climate Policy, in Plain English

What’s Ahead for Power Plants & Industry? Using the Clean Air Act to Reduce GHGs, Building on Regional Programs

Executive Summary

Findings

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the United States Using Existing Federal Authorities and State Action

Video Summary