Governor Walker, legislators, state officials, and industry groups submitted comments on EPA’s proposed carbon regulation for existing power plants at the beginning of December.
The Department of Natural Resources and Public Service Commission jointly filed a robust 119 pages of comments to EPA. The comments outline general concerns, building block comments, technical data corrections for Wisconsin, emission reduction efforts in Wisconsin, legal issues, and Wisconsin-specific modelling results and cost estimates concluding that the rule could cost Wisconsin up to $13 billion.
Governor Walker and state legislators echoed the concerns expressed by the state agencies in separate comments to EPA. Governor Walker states that the rule will “be a blow to Wisconsin residents and business owners…” calling on EPA to reconsider the rule’s economic and reliability consequences. Members of the State Assembly expressed concerns over the rule’s impact on coal-fired generation as a significant portion of Wisconsin’s base load generation capacity.
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, along with other industrial representatives, also outlined their opposition to EPA’s proposal calling the rule unlawful and a threat to energy reliability and Wisconsin’s economic competitiveness.
The comment period for the proposed rule closed December 1st and EPA is set to release the finalized version of the rule in June 2015. Compliance plans from states are expected by June 2016 with the opportunity for one or two year extensions. The rule requires that states start making progress towards compliance in 2020 and meet the final emission reduction goal by 2030.
For full coverage of EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan including additional comments, resources, and the latest news articles, visit Hamilton’s Carbon Regulations Page.