Comments on Obama’s Clean Power Plan
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed: “Air pollution and climate change are everyone’s problem, and we can all be part of the solution. This common-sense measure will provide significant public health benefits to Atlanta residents and people across the United States.”
Regional Business Coalition Chairman Mike Stephens: “This rule will drive up energy costs, cause job losses and hurt economic growth. We need the courts to determine whether it is legal before we spend billions of dollars to comply with it.”
Georgia Chamber President Chris Clark: “The chamber will continue to work with our congressional delegation, Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division and our small business and industry partners to ensure that if this plan is implemented, it is done so with minimum long-term damage to the state’s economy.”
Arguments pitting the economy against the environment rarely find common ground, and this week’s mandate from Washington to clean the nation’s air proved no different.
Predicting the financial impact to Georgia consumers, for example, remained as elusive Tuesday as summer showers needed to douse metro Atlanta’s heat, haze and carbon-induced pollution.
But supporters and detractors of President Barack Obama’s plan to reduce power-plant emissions in Georgia by 25 percent did manage to agree on one crucial distinction:
Georgia dodged a harsher, and more costly, climate-protection bullet.
Last year, when the White House first unveiled its Clean Power Plan, Georgia was tapped to release no more than 834 pounds of carbon per megawatt hour by 2030. Monday, the administration relented — after much lobbying — and said Georgia could release 1,049 pounds per megawatt hour, a goal that should be more readily achieved.
The Environmental Protection Agency further loosened the final rules for all states by delaying the start of new emissions targets from 2020 to 2022.
And, finally, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee get credit for planned nuclear power plants, including Plant Vogtle near Augusta. The EPA had previously used the states’ nuclear plans as a reason to reduce emissions even further. But the three states successfully argued that their nuclear foresightedness would help them meet the carbon requirements.
“I am pleased to see that the final rule does not penalize the foresight of the energy sector and the Public Service Commission in Georgia for investing in and building new nuclear generation capacity,” said Judson Turner, the director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division. “To do so would have sent exactly the wrong message to states and utilities that have proactively planned for and developed a diverse energy portfolio.”
Grudging thanks quickly gave way, though, to disgruntlement by many Georgia officials who complained that the Washington climate-change mandates — a one-third reduction nationwide in carbon-dioxide emissions by 2030 — will lead to higher costs for consumers. Georgia’s Republican U.S. senators, Johnny Isakson and David Perdue, warned of electric rate increases, with Perdue vowing to “fight them with every tool at my disposal.”
Chuck Eaton, a member of the Georgia Public Service Commission, says he has heard rates could rise anywhere from 25 percent to 50 percent. (He declined to proffer an estimate.)
“To suggest it won’t raise rates contradicts the entire nature of a mandate (that) forces you away from the least-cost option,” he said.
Georgia Power, the state’s largest electricity provider, will bear the industry brunt of Obama’s directive in Georgia. Currently, 32 percent of its energy capacity comes from coal. Six months ago, it was 42 percent. A further weaning off relatively inexpensive coal, and on to natural gas, nuclear and renewable energy sources, will be costly.
“We continue to review the final rule for specific impacts, but it will absolutely raise rates for customers,” Ron Shipman, the company’s vice president of environmental affairs, said in a statement. “EPA’s guidelines clearly force us away from economically dispatching our generating fleet to the benefit of customers.”
Not everybody aligns with the rates-will-rise camp. Nationwide, the EPA puts the price tag at $8.4 billion with total economic, health and environmental benefits ranging from $34 billion to $54 billion.
By 2020, as states reduce coal-fired emissions, retail electricity prices are expected to rise 3 percent over 2012 rates, the environmental agency predicts. By 2030, price increases could ultimately range from zero to 1 percent. While 30,000 power industry jobs might disappear, the losses would be more than offset by gains in energy-efficient fields, EPA predicts.
Marilyn Brown, a professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy, released a report last month showing that a combination of energy-efficiency measures, a greater shift to natural gas and renewables, and a “modest” tax on carbon polluters could reduce electric bills by 22 percent by 2030.
Georgia Power, like most utilities, has embraced the relative cheapness, and cleanliness, of natural gas. Nearly half its generating capacity is derived from gas. Six months ago, 42 percent came from gas.
The company’s renewable portfolio is less than 1 percent.
Jennette Gayer, the director of Environment Georgia, credits Georgia Power for a lesser reliance on coal and greater energy efficiencies. She’s less sanguine regarding nuclear power. The utility is on the hook for $7.5 billion — and likely more — for its share of the Plant Vogtle construction.
“If you look at the cost of nuclear, and the timeline of nuclear, and compare it to renewables, they don’t stack up,” Gayer said. “It’s much quicker, cheaper and easier to bring solar on line than it is to bring these huge nuclear projects on line. That’s not the right path to go down.”
Georgia Power runs five power plants with coal. It has eliminated 15 coal- and oil-fired units in recent years and is spending $6 billion to retrofit coal plants to reduce carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury. Its nuclear push was well-received by the Obama administration, which established Georgia’s carbon mandate — a reduction of 16 million tons by 2030 — by taking into account Vogtle’s future environmental impact.
In all, 16 states face tougher carbon reduction targets than originally proposed last year. But 31 states, including Georgia, had their targets loosened.
Gov. Nathan Deal directed the Environmental Protection Department to come up with a plan to meet the federal requirements, even though the state is expected to join nine other states legally challenging Obama’s plan in court.
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