RFF on the issues:
According to new data from the US Energy Information Administration, most of the two dozen states that have sued to block the Clean Power Plan have decreased coal usage regardless. Reflective of the changing US energy landscape, the new data indicates many of these same states are also leaders in the wind industry. In the Washington Post, RFF Visiting Fellow Nathan Richardson explains the apparent inconsistency between the data and states' decision to sue: “Utilities and the states might not mind so much if market forces cause them to change, but they don’t want the EPA to tell them to do it … They are fighting to keep the option to grow their coal use in the future.”
via www.rff.org
From the WaPo article:
Scott Segal, a partner at Bracewell LLP, a firm that represents some energy industry clients who also are challenging the Clean Power Plan, added that anticipation of regulation itself is a factor driving down coal usage.
“This data is not particularly surprising,” Segal said, reacting to the EIA figures. “The decline in coal use reflects both the anticipation of regulatory standards and the sustained low commodity prices of natural gas. However, the Clean Power Plan is still a significant game changer.
“The present energy market is just that: a market,” he continued. “It reacts flexibly and pragmatically to market forces. By contrast, the Clean Power Plan is designed to make market forces with respect to energy choice permanent and immutable.”
Thus, he said it isn’t fair to suggest that states opposing the Clean Power Plan have less reason to oppose merely because they now burn less coal. There’s also a matter of principle involved. These states, in aggregate, are also being asked to do much more to change their energy mixes to reduce carbon dioxide emissions than are states who support the plan, noted Jeff Holmstead, also an attorney at Bracewell LLP and a former assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation during the George W. Bush administration.
It could be argued that a carbon tax (or cap-and-trade) would be one way to allow states to keep the option to grow their coal use in the future. In other words, you can use all of the coal that you want but there is a tax that you must pay to use it.
