AIM receives update on challenge to Obama’s “Clean Power Plan”

As one of the parties to the amicus brief in support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s legal challenge to EPA’s Clean Power Plan, AIM was provided a quick update on the case and the underlying regulation from Sue Forrester Senior Director, Outreach and Advocacy, Institute for 21st Century Energy.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decided to bypass oral arguments and instead hear the case before the full court (as opposed to a three person panel) on September 27th. The litigation coalition of nearly 160 entities (including 28 states) remains confident in its arguments and looks forward to its day in court.

In other CPP-related news, last week the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) released initial data related to its 2016 Annual Energy Outlook. The analysis modeled electricity sector and economic impacts under scenarios with and without the CPP.

Not surprisingly, the EIA is projecting the CPP to have significantly greater economic impacts than projected by EPA and others.  For example:

·         EIA is projecting that electricity bills (not just rates) will increase under the CPP, whereas EPA has claimed that bills would go down significantly.

·         EIA also projects that CPP will have a major impact on coal production, reduce GDP by an average of about $60 billion, and result in about 375,000 fewer jobs in 2030 than if the rule weren’t in place.

The findings are particularly notable because they come not from industry or states opposed to the regulations, but from the federal government’s “gold standard” energy forecast specialists. The Energy Institute’s Steve Eule summarized this info in the following blog posts:

1. The Coal Hard Facts about EPA Regulation

2. Shocking! Electricity Bills Will Rise Under EPA’s Clean Power Plan

Finally, the Institute for 21st Century Energy recently released an annual map of state-by-state electricity rate data. The data show Missouri’s 2015 average electricity rates are slightly higher than all bordering states except Kansas and Tennessee, but rates remain very low compared to those in New York and California, where rates are about 50% higher than rates in Missouri.