Individual US states instead of the federal government would be granted authority to regulate carbon emissions from coal fired power plants under proposed regulations announced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st August, 2018) Individual US states instead of the Federal government would be granted authority to regulate carbon emissions from coal fired power plants under proposed regulations announced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday.
"The era of top-down, one size fits all federal mandates is over," acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler told reporters in a telephone conference call. "By acting within the law in rebalancing federal and state roles, we will give states and the private sector the regulatory certainty they need to invest in new technologies and provide clean, affordable and reliable energy for all Americans."
The proposal, entitled the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Rule, establishes emission guidelines for states to use when developing plans to limit greenhouse gases at their power plants, the EPA explained in an earlier press release.
The ACE Rule would replace the Obama administrations "overly prescriptive and burdensome Clean Power Plan" in an attempt to facilitate economic growth and job creation while still reducing carbon emissions that contribute to global warming, the release stated.
The proposal drew immediate condemnation from environmental groups, which claimed that the new rules could lead to increased output of greenhouse gases.
"The plan calls for only modest efficiency improvements at individual power plants, which will barely make a dent in cutting heat-trapping emissions from the electricity sector, and could even, under some circumstances, lead to increased emissions," the Union of Concerned Scientists warned in a press release.
The scientists group said the proposal fails to meet EPAs mandatory duty to curb global warming emissions from major sources such as power plants, which account for about 28 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions.
